Wally - His Cartoons of the A.E.F. #[nn]
Published in Paris in 1919 by The Stars and Stripes — the official newspaper of the American Expeditionary Forces — this collection gathers Abian 'Wally' Wallgren's wartime cartoons into a single volume, making it one of the earliest American comic-cartoon anthologies born directly out of active military service. The work stands as a primary document of how enlisted men processed and satirized the absurdities of military life during World War I, occupying the same cultural role for the AEF that Bill Mauldin's work would later fill for troops in World War II. Its dedication to the frontline soldier and its charitable purpose — profits earmarked for The Stars and Stripes French War Orphans' Fund — also mark it as an early example of comics being deployed for humanitarian ends. As a collected reprint of strips that had already run in a newspaper read by an entire army, the volume represents a direct ancestor of the 'trade paperback' impulse: gathering episodic cartoon work into a durable, portable format for a mass readership.
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Wallgren (1892–1948), a Philadelphia native who had drawn strips for the Philadelphia Public Ledger and the Washington Post before the war, joined the Marine Corps in 1917 and served with the Fifth Marines of the First Division in France. After nearly nine months as a regimental sign painter on the Western Front, he was recruited to the two-person art department of The Stars and Stripes, where his rough, broad cartoons and 'Helpful Hints' single-panel gags ran at the top of page 7 of every issue from February 8, 1918, through June 13, 1919. The book collects those strips into 52 unpaginated leaves in an oblong-folio softcover format, published in Paris by The Stars and Stripes itself; a contemporary colleague described the demand for the collected cartoons as proof of Wallgren's extraordinary popularity among soldiers. Wallgren's editorial team at the paper was remarkably distinguished, including future New Yorker founder Harold Ross, drama critic Alexander Woollcott, and bibliophile John Winterich — a context that underlines how seriously the AEF took soldier-oriented journalism and cartooning.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Creator: Abian Anders 'Wally' Wallgren (1892–1948), Private, U.S. Marine Corps; veteran cartoonist for the Philadelphia Public Ledger and Washington Post before the war.
- Publisher: The Stars and Stripes, Paris, 1919 — the official newspaper of the American Expeditionary Forces (A.E.F.).
- Format: 52 leaves, unpaginated; oblong softcover, approximately 7 × 17½ inches; stapled with illustrated wraps — an unusual horizontal format suited to the wide comic-strip panel layout.
- Content sourced directly from Wallgren's cartoon strip and 'Helpful Hints' single-panel series, which ran on page 7 of every issue of The Stars and Stripes from February 8, 1918, to June 13, 1919.
- Proceeds from the book were designated for The Stars and Stripes French War Orphans' Fund, giving the collection an explicit charitable mission at the point of publication.
- Wallgren dedicated the work to the frontline soldier; his cartoons satirized military hierarchy, regulations, mud, rations, and the gap between officers and enlisted men.
- The Saluting Demon — a meek soldier who compulsively saluted everything around him — is Wallgren's most noted recurring cartoon character, most prominently developed in his post-war work for the American Legion Magazine.
- In 1933, Wallgren collaborated with former Stars and Stripes editor John Winterich on a follow-up volume, The A.E.F. in Cartoons, extending the documentary record of his wartime cartooning into the next decade.
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The size and weight restrictions the folks have to send Christmas parcels to the troops.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).