The Better 'Ole or The Romance of Old Bill (1918)

"The real war," said Walt Whitman, "will never get in the books." During World War II, the truest glimpse most Americans got of the "real war" came through the flashing black lines of twenty-two-year-old infantry sergeant Bill Mauldin. Week after week, Mauldin defied army censors, German artillery, and Patton's pledge to "throw his ass in jail" to deliver his wildly popular cartoon, "Up Front," to the pages of Stars and Stripes. "Up Front" featured the wise-cracking Willie and Joe, whose stooped shoulders, mud-soaked uniforms, and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect bore eloquent witness to the world of combat and the men who lived―and died―in it.
Before Mauldin, WW1 Great Britain had its cartoon strip characters created by British Capt. Bruce Bairnsfather: Ol Bill and his infantry trench buddies Birt and Alf. From them a 1917 musical was staged and a 1926 American synchronized sound comedy drama film released by Warner Bros.Inc.
Published by Herman Darewaki Music Pub. Co., London