"I would like to thank the people who encouraged me to draw army cartoons at a time when the gag man's conception of the army was one of mean ole sergeants and jeeps which jump over mountains"
About this Quote
Mauldin is thanking his enablers, but he does it with a side-eye that turns gratitude into a quiet indictment of the culture he was pushing against. The line lands because it punctures a popular wartime fantasy: the “gag man” version of the army as slapstick machinery, all “mean ole sergeants” and jeep stunts that could be storyboarded between toothpaste ads. That caricature isn’t just inaccurate; it’s convenient. It keeps the home front entertained, keeps morale tidy, and keeps the mess of real soldiering off the page.
His phrasing matters. “At a time when” reads like a timestamp, but it’s also a rebuke: this was the dominant mode, and it was childish. “Mean ole” is deliberately sing-song, the diction of cartoons for people who don’t have to sleep in mud. By invoking the “gag man,” Mauldin draws a line between comedy as insulation and comedy as testimony. He’s not rejecting humor; he’s rejecting humor that functions as denial.
The context is Mauldin’s WWII work for Stars and Stripes, especially Willie and Joe: grunts who weren’t symbols of glory so much as exhausted citizens in uniform. His intent is to credit editors and officers who let him be honest - and to remind readers that honesty itself was a fight. The subtext: representing war realistically can look like bad morale to people who mistake propaganda for patriotism. Mauldin’s real punchline is that the “mountain-jumping” jeep isn’t just a joke; it’s an alibi.
His phrasing matters. “At a time when” reads like a timestamp, but it’s also a rebuke: this was the dominant mode, and it was childish. “Mean ole” is deliberately sing-song, the diction of cartoons for people who don’t have to sleep in mud. By invoking the “gag man,” Mauldin draws a line between comedy as insulation and comedy as testimony. He’s not rejecting humor; he’s rejecting humor that functions as denial.
The context is Mauldin’s WWII work for Stars and Stripes, especially Willie and Joe: grunts who weren’t symbols of glory so much as exhausted citizens in uniform. His intent is to credit editors and officers who let him be honest - and to remind readers that honesty itself was a fight. The subtext: representing war realistically can look like bad morale to people who mistake propaganda for patriotism. Mauldin’s real punchline is that the “mountain-jumping” jeep isn’t just a joke; it’s an alibi.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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