October 4, 2009
Todd DePastino, Ph.D.
"AN ILLUSTRATED TALK ON THE GREAT WORLD WAR II CARTOONIST BILL MAULDIN"
This talk is based on Dr. DePastino's book BILL MAULDIN: A LIFE UP
FRONT (W.W. Norton,2008), which has been named one of the best books
of 2008 by the Boston
Globe, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the
Pittsburg Post-Gazette among others. Cartoonist Bill Mauldin infantry
sergeant rocketed to fame at age twenty-two with his wildly popular
feature "Up Front."
Week after week, Mauldin defied army censors, German artillery, and General George Patton's pledge to throw him in jail for insubordination to deliver his grim depictions of war to "Stars and Stripes" and hundreds of home front newspapers. There, readers followed the stories of Willie and Joe, two wise-cracking 'dogfaces' whose mud-caked uniforms and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect bore eloquent witness to the world of combat and the men who lived - and died - in it. We have never viewed war in the same way since.
Dr. DePastino is editor of the acclaimed WILLIE & JOE: THE WW II YEARS (Fantagraphics Books, 2008), the first complete collection of Mauldin's World War II. He has a Ph.D. in American History from Yale University and teaches at Waynesburg University. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and two daughters.
Audio of Todd's Talk on "Bill Mauldin"
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Some Images from the Talk
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