Willie & Joe: The WWII Years | 
| Author: Bill Mauldin
Creator: Todd Depastino
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Category: Book
List Price: $65.00
Buy New: $35.45
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 4366
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 650
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6.8
Dimensions (in): 10.7 x 8.5 x 3.1
ISBN: 1560978384
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.530207
EAN: 9781560978381
ASIN: 1560978384
Publication Date: April 28, 2008
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Product Description
Presenting the complete WWII cartoons of Bill Mauldin, the greatest cartoonist of the Greatest Generation.
"The real war," said Walt Whitman, "will never get in the books." During WW II, the closest most Americans ever came to the "real war" was through the cartoons of Bill Mauldin, the most beloved enlisted man in the U.S. Army. Here, for the first time, Fantagraphics Books brings together Mauldin's complete works from 1940 through the end of the war. 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.
Bill Mauldin knew war because he was in 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. His brilliant send-ups of officers were pure infantry, and the men loved it.
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. Months of miserable weather, bad food, and tedium interrupted by the terror of intense bombing and artillery fire took its toll. By the year's end, virtually every man in Mauldin's original rifle company was killed, wounded, or captured.
The wrinkles in Willie's 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. 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. Their dark, often insubordinate humor sparked controversy among army brass and incensed General George S. Patton, Jr.
This is first of several volumes publishing the best of Bill Mauldin's single panel strips from 1940 to 1991 (when he stopped drawing). His Willie & Joe cartoons will be presented in a deluxe, beautifully designed two-volume slipcased edition of over 600 pages. The series is edited by Todd DePastino, whose Mauldin scholarship will be on full display in a biography of the artist coming in February 2008 from W. W. Norton. Willie & Joe will contain an introduction and running commentary by DePastino, providing context for the drawings, pertinent biographical details of Mauldin's life, and occasional background on specific cartoons (such as the ones that made Patton howl).
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
A Very Great Gift November 18, 2008
Janet Harper Norris (Hurricane WV)
I purchased this book for my husband and he was VERY PLEASED. I had overheard he and a buddy discussing the war cartoons and I was able to find them with a Google search.My husband was also impressed with the workmanship of the volumes.
Nick's Opinion October 14, 2008
Nicholas A. Glaskowsky Jr.
There is ccombat for some in the military. So far as the army is concerned it is the men in the rifle companies who bear the brunt of combat. They are in touch with the enemy, face to face and hand to hand. Bill Mauldin was a master at expressig the life and times of the infantryman. Somehow he managed to picture a very serious busines with humor. Not an easy task, but he was a master of it.
Memories of WWII October 11, 2008
U. Mccormick (Texas)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
For those who lived through World War II, this is a sweet reminder of Bill Mauldin's fight to show the mud and toil of the war.
Bill Malden October 5, 2008
Wilbur E. Clark (KC Mo USA)
A very good collection of the cartoons of Maldin. A very good selection of his cartoons and a good case study of him.
 Willie & Joe: The WWII Years June 5, 2008
Michael A. Raney (Phoenix, AZ USA)
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
Had an original copy a number of years ago, misplaced it somewhere along the line. It's like finding an old friend.
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