Willie & Joe: The World War II Years by Bill Mauldin, edited by Todd DePastino (Fantagraphics Books,

When I receive a book, I generally comment to my wife that I have received a book and I will show it to her. If she does not take an immediate interest I pout, rather pathetically, until she does take an interest, at which point she will typically smile, tell me that it is a very nice book, give me a cookie, pat me on the head and send me on my way. At least that is how it seems to me.


That was not entirely the case, however, when Willie & Joe: The World War II Years by Bill Mauldin, arrived at my door. Willie & Joe is a beautiful, two-volume, slip-cased set of the complete works of Bill Mauldin through the end of WWII. As soon as I saw it, I felt a rush of adrenalin and proudly displayed the set to my wife. She still smiled and told me it was a very nice set but then she also told me that when I had finished reading it, she wanted to place it on our family room coffee table. The books have been proudly displayed since the day that they arrived, at my wife’s insistence. They are that physically engaging, even before the first page is read.


Willie & Joe is an extraordinarily compiled and presented tribute to Bill Mauldin, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist who chronicled life in the U.S. Army from 1940 to 1945. The set is bound in army green canvas and typeset in the font of an old manual typewriter, the kind an army clerk might have used during the Second World War. The collection is a sensory delight, pleasing to touch and beautiful to see.


For the full review, visit BiblioBuffet at the following link.

BiblioBuffet - Writing Worth Reading, Reading Worth Writing About - A Man of the Infantry 10/18/09