Here is cartoonist Mr. Fish’s take on the Rolling Stone controversy, posted today at the web site for Harper’s magazine:
Brilliant stuff.
Whatever happened to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” anyway? Perhaps that’s just not profitable enough these days.
Find Mr. Fish’s stuff here. Find Harper’s here.
Thanks to Steve Yelvington for retweeting this today.
Robert Nott of the Santa Fe New Mexican reports today:
Somewhere up in cartoon heaven, Willie and Joe must be smiling.
That’s because their daddy, the late cartoonist Bill Mauldin, received a commemorative U.S. postal stamp Wednesday.
The man in the rust-colored shirt is Nat Mauldin, Bill’s son.
He’s pointing to his younger brother, Sam. At left is Mauldin’s
granddaughter, Erin. Photo by Luis Sánchez of the New Mexican.
—
The 44-cent stamp — available for purchase today — features both a picture of a smirk-faced, helmet-wearing Mauldin (shot by Life magazine photographer John Phillips in 1943) and a cartoon image of Willie and Joe looking as if they just escaped yet another brush with hell.
The U.S. Postal Service unveiled the stamp at a dedication ceremony in the auditorium of The New Mexico History Museum.
Here’s a look at the stamp itself. Click for a larger view:
The two characters on the right are the aforementioned Willie and Joe, who Mauldin made famous in the editorial cartoons he drew for Stars and Stripes throughout the second World War.
Here are a few samples. Click any for a closer look:
The one on the bottom right is perhaps Mauldin’s best-known Stars and Stripes cartoon. The one on the bottom left, however, has to be one of the best — and most daring — wartime cartoons ever.
As you can see, Mauldin championed the little guy; the regular man in the trenches. He was chewed out once by Gen. George S. Patton for lampooning Patton’s elitist attitude of treating soldiers like peasants. Even this face-to-face encounter with the famously fearsome general didn’t change Mauldin’s work or his point of view.
In 1945 — at the age of 23 — Mauldin won a Pulitzer prize for this cartoon work. He also earned a purple heart — after all, he cartooned on the side. Mauldin was primarily a front-line soldier. Mauldin later cartooned for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch — earning a second Pulitzer — and the Chicago Sun-Times. It was for the latter he drew one of my all-time favorite editorial cartoons, the day President John F. Kennedy was killed:
Read Robert Nott’s story in today’s Santa Fe New Mexican. Read about the 2003 death of Bill Mauldin in the Stars and Stripes archive.
Flip through a collection of Mauldin’s best work here.
Buy the Bill Mauldin stamps online here.
For what it’s worth, more newspaper comics artists will be honored by the U.S. Postal Service later this year. Starting in July, you’ll be able to buy this little gem:
That’s right. It’s the Sunday Funnies stamps, of which this is but one of five:
Not helpful in the least. But perhaps worth a Tuesday afternoon smile.
Rall is the president of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists. Find his web site here.