Bill Mauldin Remembered

By: Dave Astor In 1999, two septuagenarian legends spoke at the National Cartoonists Society meeting in San Antonio. First to the podium was "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz, followed by editorial cartoonist Bill Mauldin.

Mauldin -- who died Wednesday at age 81 -- would outlive Schulz by nearly three years. But on that spring day in Texas, Schulz was healthy and Mauldin was visibly struggling with the Alzheimer's disease that would eventually kill him.

Mauldin spoke haltingly, often losing his train of thought and lapsing into long silences. So Schulz approached the podium to help. He tried to complete some of Mauldin's sentences, and spoke glowingly about the two-time Pulitzer winner's work.

Schulz that day embodied two of the groups -- cartoonists and World War II veterans -- who greatly admired Mauldin.

World War II vets (of which Schulz was one) loved Mauldin for his characters of Willie and Joe -- the weary everyman soldiers. And cartoonists admired Mauldin for his art, humor, and pointed commentary. It was not surprising that Schulz would have Snoopy offer a root-beer toast to Mauldin in many of his Veterans Day comics -- the originals of which he would often send Mauldin as gifts. And the cartoonists in San Antonio expressed their regard for Mauldin by encouraging him as he attempted to speak, showing him dog-eared copies of his books they had brought, and talking about the impact of his work.

Mauldin did manage to make a few coherent comments at the meeting. "I decided after being in the Army for a short while that it needed reforming, so I set about reforming it," said the cartoonist. "General Patton wanted me thrown into jail, but I had too many low-ranking friends!"

His fellow "low-ranking" World War II vets were among the thousands of people who wrote or visited Mauldin the past six months at a Newport Beach, Calif., nursing facility (Syndicate World, Jan. 9).

Mauldin was by no means perfect. He could be gruff and crusty, and his personal life was marked by more than one divorce. But he was a courageous nonconformist, whether it involved bucking military brass or fighting for ownership of his cartoons.

At a 1985 Newspaper Features Council meeting in San Francisco, Mauldin recalled trying to get syndicated during World War II. When his agent told him he couldn't own his own characters, Maudlin insisted upon, and got, that right -- unusual for that time. The "price," he said, was a less lucrative contract.

Mauldin's most famous post-World-War II drawing was his 1963 Chicago Sun-Times cartoon showing the Lincoln Memorial's statue of Abraham Lincoln grieving over President Kennedy's assassination.

That approach eventually became overused -- as when many cartoonists drew everything from the Cat in the Hat crying over the death of Dr. Seuss to the Statue of Liberty weeping after 9/11.

Speakers at the 1993 Association of American Editorial Cartoonists meeting in Austin, Texas, spoofed all this by showing several fake obituary cartoons of the future -- including one of "Mr. Peanut" shedding a tear for Jimmy Carter.

But when Mauldin used a grieving icon, it was something new (or at least not often done). This originality marked much of his work.