Bill Mauldin is best known for his work during World War 2 with the military newspaper “Stars and Stripes,” and his comic characters Willie and Joe. These two were long-suffering infantrymen, and Mauldin used them brilliantly to show just how a couple of regular guys adapted to the horrors of war by leaning on each other, engaging in some well-justified griping, and occasionally finding some humor in the whole mess. His comics were published after the war in a book called “Up Front.” What’s not as well known is that, after the war, Mauldin brought Willie and Joe home and had them re-adjusting to normal life. Mauldin also started dabbling in some political cartooning around this time as well, and those comics were published in a book aptly called “Back Home.”
Mauldin was, by the standards of his time, a liberal. That is to say, he was a 1946 American liberal in the style of Harry…
