Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere

Today we salute all veterans of the military forces, from wartime and peacetime. Here's some cartoons by the great Bill Maudlin, vividly portraying World War II Army life.





"Willie and Joe" cartoons, reprinted in Willie and Joe: The WWII Years (Fantagraphics, 2008)
"Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause." — Abraham Lincoln

Never forget them.

Bill Mauldin cartoon from Stars and Stripes, July 3, 1944

"We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We have felt—we still feel—the passion of life to its top. In our youths our lives were touched by fire."—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in an address delivered on Memorial Day, May 30, 1884, speaking of about his Civil War experiences

Friday Night Fights: The Real Fighters

We're comic book fans. We like our heroes strong-hearted, our adventures high-spirited, and our fights big, bold, and bombastic:


And there's nothing wrong with that.

But tonight I want to focus on a different kind of fighter. A different kind of fight. A different breed of hero. The real ones.

Cartoons from Up Front by Bill Mauldin (1945)

Sunday is Veterans Day (observed this year on Monday, November 12). Not just a holiday off or a day the banks and post offices are closed. It's a day to remember, honor, and salute America's fighting men and women who have protected and battled...and many have died...for our rights and lives, in our World Wars and other conflicts.


Much as we'd like to picture it, Captain America and the Invaders didn't win wars. Nor was it muscled-ripped, gung-ho Sergeants Rock or Fury. It was the fighting forces of America and her allies, soldiers like Bill Mauldin's war-weary, unshaven Willie and Joe...the quintessential WWII G. I. Joes. The Real American Heroes.


In the best traditional of editorial cartooning, Mauldin's "tell it like it is" cartoon reporting straight from the frontline infuriated General George Patton for daring to portray the troops as anything but clean-shaven, well-turned-out, battle-professional soldiers. Mauldin had his champion in Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower, however, who overruled Patton. The cartoons—and Mauldin—were great favorites of the military men and women for portraying the battlefield as it happens to be: grim, muddy, unglamorous, and black-humored.


Salute and honor these men and women, veterans not just WWII but of all America's wars, on Monday—and every day. They never fought Darkseid or Doctor Doom. They never teamed up with Captain America or the Justice Society. But they fought the good fight.


Bahlactus's Friday Night Fights.