Trouble Back Home

Like many G.I.s, Willie and Joe found it hard to get back into civilian life. Like their creator, baby-faced Cartoonist Bill Mauldin, they had found the issues much simpler Up Front than Back Home. This week, tired of coping with the problem of reconverting Willie, Joe and himself, Mauldin quit as a syndicated newspaper cartoonist.

A good many editors had already beaten him to the draw. They had bought his cartoons on the strength of their wartime popularity and their often bitter humor. When Mauldin went political on them, played footie with the far left and crusaded for an understanding with Russia, papers began dropping his cartoons.

When the Soviet's actions at U.N. turned Mauldin into what he called "a disillusioned fellow traveler," he turned to obscure crusades that baffled many a reader and lost him more papers. Though 182 papers used to carry him, only 56 ran his last cartoon this week (see cut).

For a few months at least, Mauldin will take things easy. "I'm just tired," he said. "This is something I should have done when I first got out of the Army." Later on, he will decide whether to go back to newspaper cartooning, or let Willie and Joe stay on the shelf for the duration of the peace.

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