Their dark, often insubordinate humor sparked controversy among army brass and incensed General George S. With their heavy brush lines, detailed battlescapes, and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect, Mauldin's cartoons and captions recreated on paper the fully realized world of the American combat soldier. The wrinkles in Willie and Joe's uniforms deepened, the bristle on their faces grew, and the eyes - "too old for those young bodies," as Mauldin put it - betrayed a weariness that would remain the entire war. By the year's end, virtually every man in Mauldin's original rifle company was killed, wounded, or captured. Months of miserable weather, bad food, and tedium interrupted by the terror of intense bombing and artillery fire took its toll. After wading ashore with his division on the first of its four beach invasions in July 1943, Mauldin and his men changed - and Mauldin's cartoons changed accordingly. His brilliant send-ups of officers were pure infantry, and the men loved it. He had created his characters, Willie and Joe, at age 18, before Pearl Harbor, while training with the 45th Infantry Division and cartooning part-time for the camp newspaper. Bill Mauldin knew war because he was in it. This collection of over 600 cartoons, most never before reprinted, is more than the record of a great artist: it is an essential chronicle of America's citizen-soldiers from peace through war to victory. Here, for the first time, Fantagraphics Books brings together Mauldin's complete works from 1940 through the end of the war.
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