Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front

by Todd DePastino

Book Overview

"The real war," said Walt Whitman, "will never get in the books." During World War II, the truest glimpse most Americans got of the "real war" came through the flashing black lines of twenty-two-year-old infantry sergeant Bill Mauldin. Week after week, Mauldin defied army censors, German artillery, and Patton's pledge to "throw his ass in jail" to deliver his wildly popular cartoon, "Up Front," to the pages of Stars and Stripes. "Up Front" featured...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393061833
• ISBN13: 9780393061833
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

What a wonderful book!

Whether you knew of Bill Mauldin's talents or his life or not, "A Life Up Front" offers a beautifully researched and written exploration of the man and his ongoing participation in and commentary on the events of the last fifty years of the 20th century. Often humorous, always sensitive DePastino moves beyond the known--Bill Mauldin as a prize winning editorial cartoonist of WWII grunts Willie and Joe--to an intimate portrait of a man who spoke out on the key issues of the day (sometimes to his detriment, personally and professionally.) A fascinating read.

A Beloved American Original

The most famous cartoonist of World War Two was Bill Mauldin. Everyone knew his cartoons of the disheveled, ill-shaven GIs Willie and Joe, but not everyone liked them. The GIs themselves were big fans. They knew that Mauldin, even in the simple medium of newspaper comics, was getting their story right. In _Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front_ (Norton), Todd DePastino, who has previously edited a book of Willie and Joe cartoons, has given us what is, surprisingly, the first full length biography of the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. The book fittingly contains dozens of Mauldin's drawings, and not all from the war years. Like many veterans, Mauldin may have had the high point of his life during the war, but his second Pulitzer came in 1958, and it's not even for his most famous post-war cartoon. A distinctly American genius, Mauldin deserved a sympathetic and detailed biography, and that is just what DePastino has given us. Mauldin really was a genius with a pencil or pen. He was making detailed drawings before he could talk. He got some formal training, but he could not make cartoons pay, and unemployment was bad enough in 1940 that he joined the Arizona National Guard's 45th Infantry Division. His cartoons, featured in the division newspaper, were humorous takes on the sort of things other soldier cartoonists were doing, showing dumb privates peeling potatoes and dumb officers mouthing off criticisms. After he went through battle in Sicily and Italy, however, the cartoons changed, showing generally competent soldiers, doing a bloody, muddy, dangerous, and unappreciated job. The sympathetic accuracy of the portraits was what made them beloved by the dogfaces that recognized themselves in the depictions and the situations. The GIs loved Mauldin's cartoons; the officers were less than unanimous in their admiration. General Patton hated them, and early in Mauldin's army career, he tried pulling rank, telling Mauldin's commander "Get rid of Mauldin and his cartoons". It was one battle Patton lost. Mauldin's cartoons were syndicated stateside. He also began a writing career that was to prove to be successful, starting with _Up Front_, a bestselling account of the Italian campaign. He became a popular editorial cartoonist. His cartoons took down segregationists, the KKK, and the anti-Communist hysteria of Joe McCarthy. He got himself an FBI file for his efforts. His most famous postwar cartoon was the one of the statue of Lincoln from the Memorial, head in hands after the assassination of Kennedy. Mauldin remained a reporter, taking assignments in Vietnam, Israel, and even the Persian Gulf for our first war there. He acted briefly in the movies. He died of dementia, complicated by alcohol, and a severe scalding accident in 2003. DePastino's wonderful and moving book rightly concentrates on the war years, but details plenty of the post-war career. Mauldin was self-critical enough to write, "I never quite could shake off the guil

Bill Mauldin's relevance today.

This is a wonderful look at one of the most talented men of the last century. It is a well-written book on a man who embodied the spirit of an age. As the cartooning G.I. of WW 11 who put a face on the common foot soldier to the writer & political cartoonist who struggled to find a place for himself after that war, this book is a great accounting of a singular life in American History and the Art of Political Cartooning. The illustrations and photos are wonderful. The work is remarkable in it's relevance to & resonance in this century.

Long Ovedue Book on the Great Bill Mauldin

Bill Mauldin wrote several great books on his own life including "The Brass Ring" in 1972. This new, and only, biography, by Todd DePastino, is as good a book, or not better, than I thought it would be when I ordered it. This excellent biography covers Mauldin's entire public and private lives. Bill was born in 1921 and passed away in 2003. The touching last weeks of his life are as inspiring as anything written in the entire book. Mauldin' most popular book of war time cartoons, "UP FRONT", was published in 1944. It won him instant fame and a Pulitzer Prize for his creation of the now legendary G.I. Wilie and Joe cartoon drawings, on and for army dogfaces, that touched the hearts and souls of our fighting men and women at war, and those and at home. But, to me, the best part of DePastino's new biography deals with Mauldin's life and career after Bill Mauldin, Joe, and Willie came home from The War. The post WW II period of Bill's career has somehow been neglected before this great book was written. In fact, Mauldin's editorial cartoons, with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and then with the Chicago Sun-Times, brought him another Pulitzer Prize in 1958. Readers will be interested in seeing that cartoon, as well as many of his war, and post war efforts. In 1965 my father bought an orignal autographed Willie framed canvas cartoon . I now have it. I have told my daughters that the Mauldin drawing is theirs, for the memories of their grandfather and me. This book just makes my fondness for Bill Mauldin even greater. I am going to get copies of this book for my daughters. Thanks, Mr. DePastino for a great biography on Bill Mauldin.

The Creator Of Willie And Joe

Bill Maudlin achieved fame as the Army cartoonist who portrayed the privates with all the dirt and grit. He was young (early 20's) in World War II, a veteran of the fighting and a dragon-slayer of the Army hierarchy (which drew the ire of Patton). He won the first of two Pulitzer Prizes for his sympathtic drawings of Willie and Joe. It was a hell of a first act that he would never repeat. From a dysfuctional family, he would be a problem drinker with three marriages who would never found a stage as big as World War II again. The writing is good with ample samples of his cartoons. An interesting story of an interesting man.