In the summer of 1945, a great tide of battered soldiers began flowing back to the united States from around the globe. Though victorious, these exhausted men were nevertheless too grief-stricken over the loss of comrades, too guilt-ridden that they had survived, and too numbed by trauma to share in the country’s euphoria. Most never saw a ticker-tape parade, or stole a Times Square kiss. All they wanted was to settle back into quiet workaday lives without fear. How tragic that the forces unleashed by World War II made this simple wish impossible.
Willie & Joe: Back Home brilliantly chronicles the struggles and disillusionments of these early postwar years and, in doing so, tells Bill Mauldin’s own extraordinary story of his journey home to a wife he barely knew and a son he had only seen in pictures. The drawings capture the texture and feel, the warp and woof, of this confusing time: the ubiquitous hats and cigarettes, the domestic rubs, the rising fear of another war, and new conflicts over Civil Rights, civil liberties, and free speech. This second volume of Fantagraphics’ series reprinting Mauldin’s greatest work identifies and restores the dozens of cartoons censored by Mauldin’s syndicate for their attacks on racial segregation and McCarthy-style “witch hunts.” Mauldin pleaded with his syndicate to let him out of his contract so that he could return to the simple quiet life so desired by Willie & Joe. The syndicate refused, so Mauldin did battle, as always, through pen and ink. 288 pages of black-and-white cartoons.
Praise for Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front and Willie & Joe: The WWII Years
“A deeply felt, vivacious and wonderfully illustrated biography.” -Clancy Sigal, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Vibrant, moving, and full of wonderful cartoons, DePastino’s book breathes life into a fascinating American genius.” — Chris Patsilelis, Philadelphia Inquirer
“DePastino’s bio serves not only as an appreciation of Mauldin’s artistry but also as a complex portrait of an iconoclast who started out as the Greatest Generation’s court jester but grew to become its conscience.” — Bob Cannon, Entertainment Weekly
“Bill Mauldin was my first artist hero . . . [Willie & Joe: The WWII Years] reminds me why.”— Steven Heller,The New York Times Book Review
“The collection is a sensory delight, pleasing to touch and beautiful to see. … For the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, for the man who was once America’s most celebrated enlisted man, Willie & Joe is a fitting, and wonderful, tribute.” —David Mitchell, BiblioBuffet
“There’s a sad wisdom on virtually every page here.”— Jeff Salamon, The Austin American-Statesman
“These gritty, existential cartoons—everything Mauldin published during the war that still exists is compiled here—are the real deal and then some.”—Laurel Maury, NPR
The WWII Years
“Bill Mauldin was my first artist hero . . . [Willie & Joe: The WWII Years] reminds me why.”— Steven Heller, The New York Times Book Review