maxm2 Posted January 19, 2000 Share Posted January 19, 2000 Someone mentioned Willie in reference to the GI Joe thread, and I wondered: anyone else read "Up Front?" and have seen his wonderful series of Joe & Willie cartoons? Are any of them on the web anywhere? They are some of the best cartoons on any subject I've seen. I became acquainted with them when, at age 12 or so, I read my father's copy (he was in combat in Germany during 1944); the inscription from my mother read: "For Leo, who knows Joe & Willie so very, very well." ------------------ Max Molinaro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Compassion Posted January 19, 2000 Share Posted January 19, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by maxm2: Someone mentioned Willie in reference to the GI Joe thread, and I wondered: anyone else read "Up Front?" and have seen his wonderful series of Joe & Willie cartoons? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That was me. I was actually referencing my GI Joe colleters edition (or whatever they call the full size Joes that they've been making for... er... older kids... for the last couple years) George S. Patton in full uniform, a cool stand -w- 3rd Armored pennant and his faithful cowardly pitbull Willie. What this comic about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxm2 Posted January 19, 2000 Author Share Posted January 19, 2000 A good intro with some cartoons: http://www.azstarnet.com/%7Erovedo/mauldin.html Also, a sample from another web page: "The Battle Artist By Ward Just Bill Mauldin's great subject was not the horrors of war but the plight of the common foot soldier--Willie and Joe cornered in a kind of no-man's-land, with the German army in front of them and their own officers in the rear. The officers are mostly clueless, callow lieutenants and self-important majors far from harm's way, indifferent to the misery of bivouac. Mauldin drew in a laconic American idiom, muscular and droll, thickets of heavy black lines describing reluctant soldiers in a disconsolate landscape, with the wisecrack as apostrophe. For a generation of Americans, Mauldin's captions summon the image of the two unshaven dogfaces in a rainstorm or sharing a foxhole in World War II." ------------------ Max Molinaro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Compassion Posted January 19, 2000 Share Posted January 19, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by maxm2: A good intro with some cartoons: http://www.azstarnet.com/%7Erovedo/mauldin.html<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkEzra Posted January 19, 2000 Share Posted January 19, 2000 My uncle Dick (45th Div medic) says the only laughs he got in the WW2 were from Mauldin's Willie & Joe cartoons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted January 19, 2000 Share Posted January 19, 2000 Long ago a neighbor of mine had a Willie and Joe paperback. Starved for WWII, I read it all in a sitting. The two I remember vividly (at least one has probably been reinforced since) are: The soldier with the tear in his eye, head turned away, as he aims the .45 at the hood of his DX'ed jeep (that one coulda been me). Willie and Joe laying in the mud with tracers zapping overhead, captioned "I CAN'T get no lower, my buttons are in the way." Or something like that. Come to think of it, there was another priceless one where they were in ambush and a German soldier is passing with a bottle of Cognac, captioned "Don't startle him, Joe..." (prox). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kverdon Posted January 19, 2000 Share Posted January 19, 2000 Yep, I loved Willie and Joe and UP Front. It seems to me that there is another Maudlin book out there (The Brass Ring??). Another one of my fav's has Willie and Joe as arty Spotters in a fox hole. There is a Stug III parked right over the hole and one of the character is speaking into the phone saying "Able Fox 5 to Able Fox.. We've got a target but you've gotta be patient". Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moriarty Posted January 19, 2000 Share Posted January 19, 2000 One of my favorites was when Willie tells Joe to get lower because of incoming and Joe says: "I can't git no lower, Willie, my buttons are in the way." [This message has been edited by Moriarty (edited 01-18-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxm2 Posted January 19, 2000 Author Share Posted January 19, 2000 Thank you all for reminding me of those wonderful cartoons (especially the "we got a target but you gotta be patient"!) People who haven't seen the cartoons really need to see the artwork, expressions, postures, etc. Some more I remember: A wretched, tired, dirty dogface walking along next to some wretched, tired, dirty German prisoners on a road in the rain. Caption: "Meantime, thousands of fresh, highly-motivated, battle-hungry US troops have captured many weary, demoralized German soldiers..." Willie and Joe sitting on a log in the mud in the rain, Joe holding some socks and saying: "Willie, yesterday ya saved my life and I swore I'd repay ya. Here's my last pair of dry socks..." An officer standing in the middle of a field hospital filled with dirty, wretched GI casualties, saying to his aide: "Well, at least they could LIE at attention..." Incidentally, a non-war book of Mauldin's which I thought was excellent was "A Sort of a Saga" which was an autobiography of his early life, which was quite colorful. For a young middle-class kid like myself (when I read it) it was also kind of eye-opening...he grew up in a kind of wandering dust-bowl type family which I never knew existed. --Max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullethead Posted January 19, 2000 Share Posted January 19, 2000 "Willie and Joe" cartoons capture the look, feel, and mindset of enlisted guys in combat environments just perfectly. Hell, most of them are still quite on point today. I can see myself and my buds from the Gulf War in a lot of them. My favorites: Willie and Joe, totally dirty, unshaven, sunken-eyed, wearing whatever they've picked up, sitting in a bunker smoking, playing cards, and drinking liberated booze with an equally wretched-looking lieutenant. Willie says, "So Lieutenant, what were some of those changes you were gonna make when you took over last month?" Joe is staring vacantly at a single pane of intact glass in a windowframe in a piece of wall. Otherwise, all else around him is waist-deep rubble. Willie comes up to him and says "Go ahead and break it, Joe. Otherwise it'll keep you awake all night." A corporal in a dimly lit arty FDC. He's got a radio handset jammed in one ear, a grease pencil behind the other, and is working furiously over the map with dividers and another grease pencil. From across the room, a fat major looks up from reading a comic book and says, "I'll talk to the colonel. You're not paid to think." Willie and Joe enter a building in an Italian village. Inside are the smashed remains of several huge wine barrels, their contents puddling on the floor. "Them Kraut bastards! Them dirty atrocity commitin' skunks!" A tank commander leans down from his turret and informs a grunt in a nearby foxhole, "We'll be moving along now. Jerry's found our range." -Bullethead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrapGame Posted January 19, 2000 Share Posted January 19, 2000 I have "Up Front" laying around in my house somewheres. I really think Mauldin was a genius. I remember Willie & Joe in their tent with a flashlight and a .45 pointed at a mouse. Said something to the effect of "Get 'em between the eyes Joe. They charge when they're wounded..." Another was one of them Shooting a Jeep with their .45 to "put it out of its misery". I am glad to see many share in his efforts. CrapGame out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Posted January 19, 2000 Share Posted January 19, 2000 Wow, I just ordered 2 of Mauldin's books, Up Front and Bill Mauldin's Army: Bill Mauldin's Greatest World War II Cartoons. You guys must have ESP to know when to start this thread. Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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