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Bill Mauldin

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Artist

The Resume

    (October 29, 1921-January 22, 2003)
    Created Willie and Joe
    Won two Pulitzer Prizes (1945, 1959)

Why he might be annoying:

    He didn't finish high school.
    He wanted to be a cartoonist since his early teens.
    During World War II, he drew cartoons reflecting anti-authoritative views, most notably Willie and Joe.
    Willie and Joe were depicted as slump-shouldered, unshaven, ornery GIs who mocked everything from their equipment to their orders.
    General George S. Patton despised him and threatened to ban Stars and Stripes from the Third Army if it didn't stop carrying Mauldin's cartoons.
    Army brass didn't care for the cartoons either since it lampooned officers.
    He wanted to have Willie and Joe killed off on the last day of combat but the editor refused to print it.
    Charles M. Schulz liked how he drew mud.
    In 1956, he ran unsuccessfully as a democrat congressman.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He enlisted in the U.S Army at 18, and took part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy (1943).
    He was awarded the Purple Heart.
    He won his first Pulitzer when he was 23.
    He drew the hard and perilous lives of soldiers often under harsh conditions and earned the admiration of every enlisted man.
    His cartoons were as popular on the home front as they were on the battlefield.
    He said, 'I drew pictures for and about the soldiers because I knew what their life was like and understood their gripes, I wanted to make something out of the humorous situations which come up even when you don't think life could be any more miserable.'
    After the war, he 'retired' Willie and Joe and attacked racism, the Ku Klux Klan, and McCarthyism through his cartoons.
    He suffered from Alzheimer's disease.
    He's buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Credit: Sockboy


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 36.36% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 18 Votes: 61.11% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 88 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 64 Votes: 60.94% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 514 Votes: 79.18% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 10 Votes: 40.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 11 Votes: 45.45% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 11 Votes: 54.55% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 13 Votes: 23.08% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 10 Votes: 10.0% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 23 Votes: 52.17% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 47 Votes: 38.30% Annoying
    In 2008, Out of 63 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2007, Out of 96 Votes: 45.83% Annoying
    In 2006, Out of 124 Votes: 45.16% Annoying
    In 2005, Out of 300 Votes: 44.33% Annoying