Review of "Great Mud’"

Title: He Drew Great Mud’
Author: DAVID MICHAELIS
Source: The New York Times
Date of Publication: March 2, 2008

A mischievous rifleman from the 180th Infantry Regiment during the later part of World War II named Bill Mauldin volunteered as a cartoonist for the 45th Division News stumbled across a creation of a cartoon. Bill Mauldin decided to turn the raw material of the front and capture it into sets of panel cartoons, sometimes even under the gravest of circumstances during war. He invented a cartoon pair by the name of Willie and Joe. Willie and Joe were not the typical “squared- jawed” soldiers that were being publicized on the “Uncle Sam” posters. These cartoons were drawn as pale, densely bearded, forested by their own rifles and packs, their huge dirt-caked boots and filthy uniforms delineated in heavily shaded brush strokes. The cartoon soldiers not only looked devilish, but as the author deciphers them, “mummified by mud”. The soldiers in combat truly appreciated and admired the fact that Bill Mauldin decided to capture the true essence of a “real” soldiers and not the highly published “ideal” soldier. The cartoon represented everything a soldier was undergoing, they displayed soldiers that were determined to survive, sometimes scared, not loving war, having to kill because they had to not because they wanted to. Because of said explanation, I admire such cartoon artist, he represents what an artist is supposed to represent, reality and not what the masses want artist to produce.