The Wolf, by Sgt. Leonard Sansone, was the kind of insider humor for GIs produced by GIs like Sansone, Bil Keane, Al Jaffee and others. Less biting than Mauldin, it still traded on experience rather than stateside fantasies and had its own type of edge.
My dad had a collection of The Wolf, and I didn't get them all as a youngster, but the innocent level of sexism came through and I liked the idea of a guy with a wolf's head. It was a favorite.
The Wolf was no sad sack. But, alas, he was still in the Army and, well, there ya go.
But at least he was getting to see the world, and Sansone placed him in a variety of locations ...
He even occasionally had to wander into combat, where he became a respected member of the force.
Well, within some well-earned limits ...
But, then, he had his priorities, after all ... (I think that, if they'd ever made this into a movie, Robert Taylor could have summoned up just the right amount of handsome slacker scamp for the role.)
Note that some of these are signed "Cpl Sansone" and some are signed "Sgt Sansoe." Evidently the artist was not the goof-off of his popular character.
But the Wolf, for all his naughtiness, was a delicate soul. Just ask the nurses. Well, the more naive among them, anyway ...
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.