*Up Front* is one of the most famous books to emerge from the Second World War, a classic in every sense of the word. In his drawings of the infantry dog-faces Willie and Joe, done while he himself fought in campaigns in Sicily and Italy, Mauldin created the immortal archetypes of the American fighting man. He knew, as one who had been there himself on the front lines and in the slit trenches, drenched with mud and rain, that Willie and Joe - with their unshaven faces, their gallows humor, their fortitude, and their dislike of privilege and cant - exemplify something enduring and surely noble about Americans at war. He knew their gripes, their fears, their jokes, and their opinions, and he recorded their talk with the most pungent accuracy.
William Henry Mauldin (October 29, 1921 – January 22, 2003) was an American editorial cartoonist who won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work. He was most famous for his World War II cartoons depicting American soldiers, as represented by the archetypal characters Willie and Joe, two weary and bedraggled infantry troopers who stoically endure the difficulties and dangers of duty in the field. His cartoons were popular with soldiers throughout Europe, and with civilians in the United States as well. However, his second Pulitzer Prize was for a cartoon published in 1958, and possibly his best-known cartoon was after the Kennedy assassination.
**Source**: [Bill Mauldin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Mauldin) on Wikipedia
