William Henry Mauldin (/ˈmɔːldən/; 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 father, Sidney Albert Mauldin (né Bissell, but adopted after being orphaned) served as an artilleryman in World War I.

[2] Bill did not graduate with his class (he was later granted a diploma in 1945)[1] and in 1939 he took courses at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts where he studied political cartooning with Vaughn Shoemaker.

While in the 45th, Mauldin volunteered to work for the unit's newspaper, drawing cartoons about regular soldiers or "dogfaces".

Eventually he created two cartoon infantrymen, Willie and Joe, who represented the average American GI.

[4] Egbert White, editor of the Stars and Stripes, encouraged Mauldin to syndicate his cartoons and helped him find an agent.

[8] While in Europe, Mauldin befriended a fellow soldier-cartoonist, Gregor Duncan, and was assigned to escort him for a time.

His credibility with the troops increased in September 1943, when he was wounded in the shoulder by a German mortar while visiting a machine gun crew near Monte Cassino.

Mauldin wanted Willie and Joe to be killed on the last day of combat, but Stars and Stripes dissuaded him.

[6] In 1945, at the age of 23, Mauldin won a Pulitzer Prize for his wartime body of work, exemplified by a cartoon depicting exhausted infantrymen slogging through the rain, its caption mocking a typical late-war headline: "Fresh, spirited American troops, flushed with victory, are bringing in thousands of hungry, ragged, battle-weary prisoners".

[12] The first civilian compilation of his work, Up Front, a collection of his cartoons interwoven with his observations of war, topped the best-seller list in 1945.

Mauldin's attempt to carry Willie and Joe into civilian life was also unsuccessful, as documented in his memoir Back Home in 1947.

In 1951, he appeared with Audie Murphy in the John Huston film The Red Badge of Courage, and in Fred Zinnemann's Teresa.

He made cartoons of Willie and Joe together only in tributes to the "soldiers' generals": Omar Bradley and George C. Marshall, after their deaths; for a Life article on the "New Army"; and as a salute to the late cartoonist Milton Caniff.

[21] Mauldin died on January 22, 2003, from Alzheimer's disease and complications of injuries received in an accidental bathtub scalding.

[6] On March 31, 2010, the United States Post Office released a first-class denomination ($0.44) postage stamp in Mauldin's honor depicting him with Willie & Joe.

A collection of post-war cartoons, Willie & Joe: Back Home, was published by Fantagraphics in August, 2011 (ISBN 978-1-60699-351-4).

In the strips, Snoopy, dressed as an army vet, would annually go to Mauldin's house to "quaff a few root beers and tell war stories."