Great re-issue of Mauldin's post-war cartoons. Short intro giving background, nice large drawings. Some purely political, some from a vet's perspective, some showing Willie and Joe. ( )

Not to be confused with the Mauldin book "Back Home," though it covers much the same ground; i.e., the immediate post-war careers of Willie and Joe, as well as some of Mauldin's earliest political cartoon work, done for United Features Syndicate. As usual with Fantagraphics productions, there's a wealth of background material that gives context to the main feature. It should be noted that this volume has a great many cartoons "Back Home" does not, and does not have Mauldin's own text. ( )

no dust jacket

While there has been a multitude of books on World War II, covering everything from grand strategy to individual fox holes, treatment of the returning serviceman seems to be lacking. Bill Mauldin takes his protagonists Willie and Joe back from the front line to face other, more subtle challenges on the home front. For many, Mauldin's work will be eye-opening as they learn about how the vets met and handled the situations they encountered once the firing stopped. His style displayed in "Up Front" is retained, the wry cynicism and un-blinking honesty ever present. ( )

This is a very interesting book. It is assembled from Mauldin's newspaper cartoons drawn after he returned from WWII. They deal with the USA after the war, and some of the adjustments necessary for returning soldiers. But he did not confine himself to the purely personal and was in continual hot water with newspaper editors. His earnings were quite low post-war. It seems that the world of commercial media was jarring to a man used to seeing some of the larger issues in the economic lives of ordinary Americans. The good will accumulated by his hit book "Up Front" was lost by his opinion of the American Business Community. I like to keep this book as a reminder that the combat soldier was annoyed by the life he left behind. He's quite revealing of the state of Native American as opposed to White American Society.
This could be a member of that intelligent contrarian strain in American life from Twain to Mencken to Hunter Thompson. ( )