ALBUQUERQUE — Two dozen original editorial cartoons created by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and World War II veteran Bill Mauldin are set to hit the auction block for the first time this week.
The work will be offered as part of a major comic art auction in Beverly Hills, Calif. Offerings include a 1974 sketch of former President Richard Nixon done while Mauldin worked for the Chicago Sun-Times and an original “Willie and Joe” cartoon from 1951.
Winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Mauldin became known during World War II for his Willie and Joe characters that lifted the spirits of U.S. soldiers through edgy humor depicting the horrors of war.
“That was the thing about Dad. He didn’t draw these from some office in New York,” his son, Nat Mauldin, said of the wartime cartoons. “He drew them there — in the middle of it.”
