This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.
Willie & Joe: The WWII Years (Softcover Ed.)
by Bill Mauldin; edited by Todd DePastino
704-page black & white/color 8" x 10" softcover • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-439-9
Willie & Joe: Back Home
by Bill Mauldin; edited by Todd DePastino
288-page black & white 8" x 10" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-351-4
"Maudlin's World War 2-era comics were fully realized depictions of combat soldiers because he, like his characters, was in the war. And as much as he conveyed the situation of the American fighting man in this new one-volume softcover collection of The WWII Years, his new, hardcover Back Home collection also poignantly relates the trials of the vet in the post-war years." – Benn Ray (Atomic Books), Largehearted Boy
"You need all the books featuring American Hero Bill Mauldin your shelves can handle, but the Back Home collection is doubly recommended for telling on one of the most startling stories in the history of cartooning: how Mauldin basically destroyed his own potentially lucrative syndicated panel offering by pulling no punches on what he saw as a curdling of the American spirit after World War 2: a multi-month act of creative self-immolation I'm not sure has ever been seen before or since. It's an amazing thing to witness those cartoons first-hand." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter
"Fantagraphics is re-releasing their Willie & Joe WWII collection by Bill Mauldin ($39.99) as a paperback and also introducing a collection of post-war Madulin cartoons, titled Back Home ($29.99)." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6
"CONFLICT OF INTEREST RESERVOIR: Smashing together a 2008 slipcased book set, Willie & Joe: The WWII Years is 704 pages of Bill Mauldin stuff in a new softcover edition; $39.99." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal