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There are other men running along with Bill Mauldin. On the Denver Post, Paul Conrad, 37, is improving a gift for satire that sometimes slops over into slapstick. Hugh Haynie, 34, of the Louisville Courier-Journal, after trying to imitate Herblock, is now working up a pungent style of his own. The Baltimore Sun's Richard Q. Yardley, 59, is an inventive craftsman who is not afraid to apply new techniques to an ancient art. On the New York Herald Tribune, Dan Dowling draws with much of the impact of the man he succeeded: Ding Darling. But all these men are professional miles behind Mauldin.
Still Learning. As the sole provider for a $39,000 neo-Spanish home, his modest backyard swimming pool and four young sons (Andrew, 12; David, 10; John, 9; and Nathaniel, 7), Bill Mauldin lives a pleasant middle-class suburban life. The Post-Dispatch pays him $20,000 a year (about half Fitz's salary at retirement); from his syndication comes another $6,000. Outside of the pool and an occasional wild game of poker, he has few interests beyond his family and his art. He cares little for fancy foods ("Bill never pays any attention to what I cook; he just eats it," complains Natalie) or fancy dress, and is currently trying to break a lifelong addiction to tobacco (he smoked his first cigar at four).
But while content, Mauldin is not serene. He never will be, nor does he consider it desirable for a man of his calling. In the annealment of war and success that came too soon, in the long search for maturity, Cartoonist Mauldin has learned an important lesson about himself and his art. "I've still got a lot to learn," he says. "I've had to learn caricature since I came to the Post-Dispatch, and it's just passable, just beginning to be acceptable. I often have to label people like Adenauer. You shouldn't have to label Adenauer."