Some Bill Mauldin finds.

Bill Mauldin(1921-2003) was a cartoonist during and after World War II, most famous for his creations "Willie and Joe", which first appeared in the 45th
I'm not qualified to speak of Mauldin's life history as others have done , but I have found a vintage magazine, showcasing his work.

Mauldin insisted on drawing his wartime cartoons in the field.  Unlike many domestically produced cartoons or propaganda pieces, there is very little depiction of the enemy, silly, threatening or otherwise such as in the Disney film "Education for Death".  Nor is there a lot of "wacky" humor, a-la the "Private Snafu" shorts, or "New Yorker" style drollery.

     In fact, the life of a soldier comes off as depressing and mundane.

 Rumor has it that Mauldin's gags ticked off more than a few officers, but the army saw fit to publish them, anyway.

   War, the soldier's plight and lifestyle have been examined and depicted for as long as human history, but more often than not, from the outside, with an editorial perspective. 
  Perhaps the reason that Mauldin's wartime work has endured is the simple honesty. 

  In the afterward to the magazine, Mauldin wrote of his fellow soldiers:
     "They've aged 15 to 20 years, have beards, their eyes have bags underneath, and they wear a dopey expression because they need a lot of sleep . Some of them are getting bowlegged and flatfooted from hiking too much. The poor guys have changed so much that I hardly recognize them". 

  I guess that's why he drew the pictures, because sometimes, there are no words.

Craft and Draughtmanship in Mickey Mouse

 the  Fantagraphics' reprints of the "Mickey Mouse" comic strips by Floyd Gottfredson,  are beautifully drawn: wonderfully constructed pieces of innocent whimsy that...

 

...  Okay, so it's Post-Depression audiences that we're talking about:  rough. After all, these strips were of the same generation of Dick Tracy. But unlike Chester Gould's violent cop, you'd never Mickey Mouse firing a gu--

 

 Um, never mind. Maybe I'm just picking out an isolated occurrence of

  

And here Clarabel Cow's gonna bust some ass. But hey, she has a rolling pin, so Comedy, Right?

 

And Goofy empties about two boxes of ammo in a blind killing rage. This is pretty sobering when I think that these are the comic strips my Grandmother grew up reading.

  

Dear God! Walt Disney's signature is even on this one! These are the comic strips my Grandmother grew up reading? 

Out of context, this panel makes it seem like Mickey's ultimate triumph is through a combination of arms escalation and damnright sadism...well that's exactly what it is.

Some George Price

So here's some scans from a wartime George Price book. In my opinion, George "Geo" Price was one of the best draftsmen ever printed in the New Yorker (the gags appearing in this book had shown up in the New Yorker, Saturday Evening Post, Colliers and Life). Although his technique got very geometric in his later years, these 1940's cartoons showcase a great combination of liner fluidity and dynamic angles , reveling in environmental details other cartoonists would simply ignore.

Everything's funny with lab animals, apparently. The chimp in the chair is the main focal point in the piece, but I adore the loving attention given to the beakers, radio, lab equipment and hoses, yet none of them detract from the main focal point (chair).
Also, I love the secondary gag with the ape about to smash a heavy glass beaker over the guy's head, and how the composition leads the eye to ape one (chair), then directs to ape two (homicidal violence), which suggests a whole story taking place inside a single panel.

Death plants! Geo Price's love of detail wouldn't be so effective without an equal degree of restraint and control. See that roof? Compare the sparseness of the roof to the house's foundation, or the garbage on the ground, and how Price uses linear detail to lead the eye.

God damn, could he draw! The gag isn't that funny, it's just an excuse to see George Price do a boatload of animals and make it look easy.

If you look closer at the postman, he just tells a whole story on his own. The face alone kicks ass, but cover that up. You can still tell how seriously he takes his job, and how he feels about it. The proper posture betrays a certain pride in his work. But, his clothes are a little baggy, the bag hangs pretty heavy, all little clues that he's not very happy about it, and been delivering notices all day.

Another "George Price draws a whole freaking zoo" gag. This time, just birds.

Another "Storytelling Drawing". Price famously had an affinity for attractive clutter, particularly in his early work. But every bit of junk, piping , tire patches on the rubber swan, furthers and "plusses" the gag. Though this is a bit more complex and visually busy than many of Price's remembered contemporaries (and many gag cartoonists working today), no line, no mark on the page is wasted.

I really don't have much to add about this one except I just love the way he draws the folds in the carpet.

Some Peter Arno

I don't know if Peter Arno gets enough love nowadays, his work is fascinating to study.
R.C. Harvey credited him with inventing (or rediscovering, for you Rodolphe Töpffer fans) the modern print cartoon, a form where the gag or story point is carried through text/picture interdependence. "Well, back to the old drawing board" contains no humorous content in of itself, but combined with the above image makes for a classic and oft-sited gag.
For some reason, Arno drew a hell of a lot of boob jokes. I could do a whole series of post about Peter Arno and boob jokes. I love this one because the entire situation is based on a subtle change of eye-line (aided by the gentleman's very arrow-like nose pointing to what he's admiring).
Forget punchlines, this gag is just pure character. Even in a style with a strict economy of detail, Arno expresses a wealth of character information with carefully chosen costume bits, a choice piece of buisness and a helluva gesture and facial expression.
Look at this Major! Even when he's harassing this guy's wife, he's standing ramrod straight. This could have been a passionate dip-kiss, but it's certainly more unique and true to character the way this soldier's kissing the woman so...militantly.
He can't be using more than 5 values in any of these examples, but boy does he make them work! I love this vertical rhythm set up with the whites of the uniforms.

Even if the gag itself isn't that funny, Arno's cartoons are just fun to look at. Design-wise, they're a treat. His characters, though simple, are expressive as hell, look at how the pair above are interacting, you know exactly what going on in both their heads. His sense of character, staging and dynamic rendering style really make for appealing drawing.
Arno's sense of composition is pretty damned awesome, particularly using the left to right reading convention as an aid to communicating the gag, either working with it to enhance movement, working against it for specific effect (look how put upon that little kid looks with the right-to-left man lecturing him) or keeping the "punchline" element of the composition to the right so it will be "read" last, like below.
I think most of the great New Yorker cartoonists were deeply disturbed people, and I love 'em for it.