Category: War Stories

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Buck Danny volume 1: Night of the Serpent


By Francis Bergése, colours by Frédéric Bergése translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebooks)
ISBN: 987-1-905460-85-4

I’ve finally picked up some of the newest translated versions of a favourite continental classic serial, courtesy of the wonderful Cinebooks; a fine publishing outfit dedicated to bringing more of the fabulous wealth and variety of European comics to the infamously resistant English-speaking World.

All-American Naval Aviator Buck Danny was created by Georges Troisfontaines and drawn by Victor Hubinon before being handed to Jean-Michel Charlier, then working as a junior artist. Troisfontaines was director of the Belgian publisher World Press Agency whilst Charlier’s fascination with human-scale drama and rugged realism had been seen in such “true-war” strips as L’Agonie du Bismark (‘The Agony of the Bismark’– published in Spirou in 1946).

With fellow master-storytellers Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny, Charlier formed the Édifrance Agency, which promoted and specialised in communication arts and comics strips. Charlier and Goscinny were editors of Pistolin magazine (1955 to 1958) and created Pilote in 1959.

Charlier’s greatest triumph is the iconic Western Blueberry (created in 1963 with Jean Giraud/Moebius). Charlier wrote Buck Danny until his death whereupon his artistic collaborator Francis Bergése (who had replaced Hubinon in 1978) took sole charge of the adventures of the Yankee Air Ace.

Like so many artists involved in stories about flight Francis Bergése (born in 1941) started young with both drawing and flying. He qualified as a pilot whilst still a teenager, enlisted in the French Army and was a reconnaissance flyer by his early twenties. At age 23 he began selling strips to L’Étoile and JT Jeunes (1963-1966) after which he produced his first aviation strip Jacques Renne for Zorro. This was soon followed by Amigo, Ajax, Cap 7, Les 3 Cascadeurs, Les 3 A , Michel dans la Course and many others.

Bergése worked as a jobbing artist on comedies, pastiches and WWII strips until 1983 when he was offered the plum job of illustrating the venerable and globally syndicated Buck Danny. When Charlier died Bergése took over the writing too and even found time in the 1990s to produce some tales for the European interpretation of Great British icon Biggles. He retired in 2008, passing on the creative chores of Buck Danny to illustrator Fabrice Lamy and scripter Fred Zumbiehl.

Buck Danny premiered in Spirou in January 1947 and continues to this day. The strip describes the improbably long and historically significant career of the eponymous Navy pilot and his wing-men Sonny Tuckson and Jerry Tumbler. It is one of the world’s last aviation strips and a series which has always closely wedded itself to current affairs such as The Korean War, Bosnia and even Afghanistan.

Like all the Danny tales this premier edition is astonishingly authentic: a breezy and compelling action thriller – originally published as Buck Danny #49: La nuit du serpent in 2000 – with colouring by Frédéric Bergése (I’m assuming that’s his son, but I’m not certain) which blends mind-boggling detail and technical veracity with good old fashioned blockbuster adventure.

At Kunsan Airbase, South Korea a veteran American pilot goes on dawn border patrol only to be hit by an uncanny light which blinds him and seems to negate all his F-16’s guidance systems. Despite his best efforts the jet crashes in the De-Militarized Zone and the North Koreans claim a flagrant breaking of the truce and a huge publicity coup.

Strangely though, the downed Colonel Maxwell is still missing. The Communists don’t have him and the pilot’s tracking devices indicate he’s still out there somewhere: lost in the No Man’s land between North and South.

The American military swings into action, determined to rescue their pilot, clean up the mess and deny the Reds either a tangible or political victory. Danny, Tumbler and Tuckson are at a Paris air show when they get the call and are soon en route to Korea for a last-ditch face-saving mission.

However as the trio prepare to join the covert rescue mission, evidence emerges which casts doubt on the authenticity of the alleged super-weapon. Meanwhile Colonel Maxwell has stumbled into a fantastic secret under the DMZ…

Fast-paced, brimming with tension and spectacular action, this is a classically designed thriller which effortlessly plunges the reader into a delightfully dizzying riot of intrigue, mystery and suspense before its captivating conclusion.

Suitable for older kids and boys of all ages the Adventures of Buck Danny is one long and enthralling tour of duty no comics fan or armchair adrenaline-junkie can afford to miss. Bon chance, mes braves…

© Dupuis, 2000 by Bergése. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Buz Sawyer: The War in the Pacific


By Roy Crane (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-362-0

Modern comics evolved from newspaper comic strips, and these pictorial features were until relatively recently utterly ubiquitous and hugely popular with the public – and highly valued by publishers who used them as an irresistible sales weapon to guarantee and increase circulation and profits.

It’s virtually impossible for us to today to understand the overwhelming power of the comic strip in America (and the wider world) from the Great Depression to the end of World War II. With no television, broadcast radio far from universal and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most folk, household entertainment was mostly derived from the comic sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. “The Funnies” were the most common recreation for millions who were well served by a fantastic variety and incredible quality.

From the very start humour was paramount; hence the terms “Funnies” and “Comics”, and from these gag and stunt beginnings – a blend of silent movie slapstick, outrageous fantasy and the vaudeville shows – came a thoroughly entertaining mutant hybrid: Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs.

Debuting on April 21st 1924 Washington Tubbs II was a comedic gag-a-day strip that evolved into a globe-girdling adventure serial. Crane produced pages of stunning, addictive quality yarn-spinning whilst his introduction of moody swashbuckler Captain Easy in the landmark episode for 6th May, 1929 led to a Sunday colour page that was possibly the most compelling and visually impressive of the entire Golden Age of Newspaper strips (see Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips volume 1)

Almost improving minute by minute Crane’s imagination and his fabulous visual masterpieces achieved a timeless immediacy that made each page a unified piece of sequential art. The influence of those pages can be seen in the works of near-contemporaries such as Hergé, giants-in-waiting like Charles Schulz and comics creators like Alex Toth and John Severin ever since.

The work was obviously as much fun to create as to read. In fact, the cited reason for Crane surrendering the Sunday strip to his assistant Les turner in 1937 was the NEA/United Features Syndicate’s abrupt and arbitrary demand that all its strips must henceforward be produced in a rigid panel-structure to facilitate their being cut up and re-pasted as local editors dictated – although the compelling text features in this book dedicated to his second masterpiece reveal a few more commercial and professional reasons for the jump from the small and provincial syndicate to the monolithic King Features outfit.

At the height of his powers Crane just walked away from the astounding Captain Easy page, concentrating on the daily feature, and when his contract expired in 1943 he left United Features to create the World War II aviation strip Buz Sawyer, lured away by the grandee of strip poachers William Randolph Hearst.

Where Wash Tubbs was a brave but comedic Lothario and Easy a surly tight-lipped he-man, John Singer “Buz” Sawyer was a happy amalgam of the two: a simple good-looking popular country-boy who went to war because his country needed him.

After the gripping and informative text feature ‘Crane’s Great Gamble’ by Jeet Heer the strip explodes into action on Christmas Eve 1942 as new Essex Class Aircraft Carrier USS Tippecanoe steams for the Pacific Theatre of Operation carrying 100 fighter-bombers and an extremely keen pair of cartoon warriors.

Buz Sawyer was a fun-loving, skirt-chasing, musically inclined pilot and his devoted gunner Rosco Sweeney a bluff, simple ordinary Joe – and one of the best comedy foils ever created. The strip is a marvel of authenticity: picturing not just the action and drama of the locale and situation but more importantly capturing the quiet, dull hours of training, routine and desperate larks between the serious business of killing whilst staying alive.

Like contemporaries Bill Mauldin and Milton Caniff, Crane was acutely aware that all his readers had someone involved in the action and therefore felt he had a duty to inform and enlighten as well as entertain. Spectacular as the adventure was the true magic is the off-duty camaraderie and personal moments that pepper the daily drama.

This beautiful archival hardback covers the entire war years of the strip from November 1st 1943 to October 5th 1945 wherein the great artist perfected his masterly skill with craftint (a mechanical monochrome patterning effect used to add greys and halftones which Crane used to add miraculous depths and moods to his superb drawing) and opens with the lovable lads shot down whilst tackling a Japanese carrier.

Marooned, their life raft washed up on a desolate desert island where they’re hunted by enemy troops and discover a German farmer and his beautiful daughter. At first hostile, the lovely fraulein, April, soon succumbs to Buz’s boyish charm. Helping Buz and Roscoe escape, the trio only make it as far as the next islet where fellow pilot and friendly rival Chili Harrison had also been stranded since his plane went down.

Eventually rescued the Navy fliers return to “the Tip” for training on new planes (Curtiss SB2C Helldivers, in case you were wondering) in preparation for the push to Japan. Amidst spectacular action sequences shipboard life goes on, but during a raid on an occupied island Buz and Sweeney are once more shot down. In the middle of a fire-fight they effect repairs and head back to the Tippecanoe, but not without cost. Rosco has been hit…

Sawyer’s exploits haven’t gone unnoticed and, whilst Sweeney is recovering from wounds, he’s selected for a secret mission deep into enemy territory; ferrying an intelligence agent to a meeting with enigmatic underground leader the Cobra.

It all goes tragically wrong and the American agent is captured. With the enemy hunting high and low for the pilot, Buz then fell back on his most infuriating ability: falling into the willing laps of beautiful women.

‘Sultry’ was a gorgeous collaborator high in the favour of the occupying Japanese, but she too finds the corn-fed aviator irresistible. Of course it might simply be that she’s also Cobra…

This extended epic is a brilliant and breathtaking adventure that blends action, suspense, love and tragedy into a compelling thriller that took Buz all the way to December 1944. As a result of his trials the hero is sent home on a thirty day leave – enabling Crane to reveal some enticing background and invoke all the passions, joys and heartbreaks of the Home Front.

Buz doesn’t want to go but orders are order, so to make things a little more bearable Buz takes the still recuperating Sweeney with him. It isn’t that the young flier despises his origins – indeed his civilian life is a purely idyllic American Dream – it’s simply that he wanted to get the job done against the enemy. Nevertheless, with a warrior’s grace under pressure, he resigned himself to peace and enjoyment whilst his comrades soldier on. If he knew the foe he would face in his little hometown, Buz would probably have gone AWOL…

Crane’s inspirational use of the War at Home was a brilliant stroke: it’s not a world of spies and insidious Bundists but just a sweet little burg filled with home-comforts and proud people – the kind of place the soldiers were fighting to preserve and a powerful tool in the morale-builder’s arsenal. It’s also a place of completely different dangers…

Buz was the son of the town’s doctor; plain, simple and good-hearted. In that egalitarian environment the kid was the sweetheart of Tot Winter, the richest girl in town, and when her upstart nouveau riche parents heard of the decorated hero’s return they hijacked the homecoming and turned it into a publicity carnival.

Moreover the ghastly, snobbish Mrs. Winter conspired with her daughter to trap the lad into a quick and newsworthy marriage. Class, prejudice, financial greed and social climbing were enemies Buz and Sweeney were ill-equipped to fight, but luckily that annoying tomboy-brat Christy Jameson has blossomed into a sensible, down-to-earth, practical and clever young woman. She’s scrubbed up real pretty too…

After a staggeringly smart and compelling soap opera sequence that would do East Enders or Coronation Street proud, Buz ended up (accidentally) engaged to Tot after all. Mercifully the leave was over and he and Sweeney had to return to the war… but even then they were disappointed to discover that they wouldn’t immediately be fighting again.

Posted to Monterey, California, they were to be retrained for new planes and a new squadron, reuniting with rowdy rival Chili Harrison: but Mrs Winter was determined to have a war hero in the clan and pursued them with Tot in tow, determined to get Buz married before he returned to the Pacific.

Insights into another aspect of the military experience (Crane had almost unfettered access, consultation privileges and the grateful willing cooperation of the US Navy) were revealed to the readers as the whiz-kid was suddenly back in school again – and usually in the dog-house because of his hot-dogging. Dramatic tension was evenly split between Buz’s apparent inability to be a team-player and the increasingly insistent ploys of Mrs. Winter.

Moreover, the squadron’s training commander had an uncanny ability to predict which pilots would die in training or combat and Buz’s name was high on that list…

At last the training was over and, miraculously alive and unmarried, Buz and Sweeney shipped back to the Pacific and the relatively easy task of ending the war. Part of a massive fleet mopping up the island fortresses en route to Tokyo they were soon flying combat missions and before long, shot down once more. This time they were taken prisoner aboard an enemy submarine…

After another incredible escape and rousing triumph the war ended, but Crane actually ratcheted up the tension by covering the period of American consolidation and occupation as Buz and Sweeney awaited demobilisation. Whilst posted to a medical facility in Melatonga the boys and Chili came across a woman from Buz’s chequered past they had all believed long dead…

When their discharge papers finally arrived (in the episode for September 9th 1945) an era of desperate struggle was over. However with such a popular and pivotal strip as Buz Sawyer that only meant that the Era of Globe-Girdling adventure was about to begin…

This superb black and white hardback also contains a selection of Sunday strips in full colour. The eternal dichotomy and difficulty of producing Sunday Pages (many client papers would only buy dailies or Sunday strips, not both) meant that many strip creators would produce different story-lines for each feature – Milt Caniff’s Steve Canyon being one of the few notable exceptions.

Crane handled the problem with typical aplomb: using the Sundays to tell completely unrelated stories. For Wash Tubbs he created a prequel series starring Captain Easy in adventures set before the mismatched pair had met; in Buz Sawyer he turned over the Sabbath slot to Rosco Sweeney for lavish gag-a-day exploits, big on laughs and situation comedy. Set among the common “swabbies” aboard ship it was a far more family-oriented feature and probably much more welcome among the weekend crowd of parents and children than the often chilling or disturbing realistically and sophisticated saga that unfolded Mondays to Saturdays.

Also included here in delicious full-page fold outs are fifteen of the best – many with appearances by Buz (spanning November 28th 1943 to 25th February 1945) – a cheerily tantalising bonus which will hopefully turn one day into a archival collection of their own. Whilst not as innovative or groundbreaking as Captain Easy, they’re still proficient works by one of the Grand masters of our art-form.

This initial collection is the perfect means of discovering or rediscovering Crane’s second magnum opus – spectacular, enthralling, exotically immediate adventures that influenced generations of modern cartoonists, illustrators, comics creators and storytellers. Buz Sawyer: War in the Pacific ranks as one the greatest strip sequences ever created: stirring, thrilling, funny and moving tale-spinning that is unforgettable, unmissable and utterly irresistible.

Strips © 2010 King Features Syndicate, Inc. This edition © 2011 Fantagraphics Books, all other material © the respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.

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You’ll Never Know Book 2: Collateral Damage


By C. Tyler (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-418-4

In 2009 cartoonist Carol Tyler published the first of a proposed trilogy of graphic memoirs that examined the difficult relationship with her father Chuck, a veteran of World War II. ‘A Good and Decent Man’ explored three generations of the family dominated by a capable mother and a hard working, oddly cold yet volatile, taciturn patriarch. Events kicked off when after six decades of silence incipient frailty suddenly produced in her once-distant father a terrifying openness and desire to share war experiences and history long suppressed.

As if suddenly speaking for an entire generation who fought and died or survived and soldiered on as civilians in a society with no conception of Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, Chuck Tyler began to unburden his soul…

This second volume takes up the acclaimed and award-winning generational saga with Carol coping with her own husband’s desertion, leading to her resuming recording her dad’s recollections of Italy and France (including the infamous Battle of the Bulge) whilst re-examining the painful, chaotic and self-destructive existence she made for herself due to his hidden demons.

Now a single mother, Carol ponders her tempestuous past through a new lens. How much did her cold and terrifying father who was nevertheless a devoted, loving husband shape her mistakes? How can she prevent her increasingly wild daughter making the same mistakes and bad choices? Moreover, as her parents’ physical and mental states deteriorate, Chuck has become obsessed by a mystery that been forgotten since he came back from the conflict and needs Carol to solve it at all costs…

With an increasingly critical reappraisal of the family’s shared experiences, Carol discovers how her own mother coped with dark tragedies and suppressed secrets (revealed in ‘The Hannah Story’ – an updated sidebar first published in 1994), gaining an enhanced perspective but still no satisfactory answers to the conundrum of her father.

As she races to complete the self-appointed task of turning her father’s life into a comprehensible chronicle her parents are both declining visibly and her own life is becoming far too complex to ignore or withstand…

Delivered in monochrome and a selection of muted paint wash and crayon effects, the compellingly inviting blend of cartoon styles (reminiscent of our own Posy Simmonds but with a gleeful openness all her own) captures heartbreak, horror, humour, angst and tragedy in a beguiling, seductive manner which is simultaneously charming and devastatingly effective, whilst the book and narrative itself is constructed like a photo album depicting the eternal question “How and Why Do Families Work?”

Enticing, disturbing and genuinely moving, ‘Collateral Damage’ is a powerful and affecting second stage in Tyler’s triptych of discovery and one no student of the human condition will care to miss.

© 1994, 2010 C. Tyler. All rights reserved.

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Comics at War


By Denis Gifford (Hawk Books)
ISBN: 978-0-96824-885-6

Often the books we write about our comics are better than the stories and pictures themselves: memorable, intensely evocative and infused with the nostalgic joy that only passing years and selective memory bestows.

That’s not in any way to denigrate or decry the superb works of the countless, generally unlauded creators who brightened the days of generations of children with fantastic adventures and side-splitting gags in those so flimsy, so easily lost and damaged cheap pamphlets, but rather because of an added factor inherent in these commemorative tomes: by their very existence they add the inestimable value and mystery of lost or forgotten treasures into the mix.

A perfect example of this is today’s wonderful item, a copious and huge chronicle released as an anniversary item in 1988 celebrating the wartime delights rationed out to beleaguered British lads and lasses, compiled by possibly the nation’s greatest devotee and celebrant of child-culture.

Denis Gifford was a cartoonist, writer, TV show deviser and historian who loved comics. As both collector and creator he gave his life to strips and movies, acquiring items and memorabilia voraciously, consequently channelling his fascinations into more than fifty books on Film, Television, Radio and Comics; imparting his overwhelming devotion to a veritable legion of fans.

If his works were occasionally short on depth or perhaps guilty of getting the odd fact wrong, he was nevertheless the consummate master of enthusiastic remembrance. He deeply loved the medium in concept and in all its execution, from slipshod and rushed to pure masterpieces with the same degree of passion and was capable of sharing – infecting almost – the casual reader with some of that wistful fire.

With hundreds of illustrative examples culled from his own collection this volume was released to commemorate the outbreak of World War II and revels in the magnificent contribution to morale generated by a battalion of artists and (usually anonymous) writers, covering the output of an industry that endured and persevered under appalling restrictions (paper was a vital war resource and stringently rationed), inciting patriotic fervour and providing crucial relief from the stresses and privation of the times.

Abandoning academic rigour in favour of inculcating a taste of the times this 160 page book reprints complete sample strips of the period beginning with the affable tramps and cover feature of Jester, Basil and Bert (by George Parlett), covering the start of the war in four strips from January to November 1939, before dividing the collection into themed sections such as ‘Be Prepared’ (with examples of Norman Ward’s Home Guard heroes Sandy and Muddy from Knock-Out and John Jukes’ Marmaduke, the Merry Militiaman from Radio Fun.

‘At War With the Army’ displays the ordinary Englishman’s perennial problem with Authority- displaying Koko the Pup and Desperate Dan (by Bob MacGillivray and Dudley Watkins from D.C. Thomsons’ Magic and The Dandy), Weary Willie and Tired Tim (from Chips and superbly rendered by Percy Cocking), as well as stunning two-tone and full colour examples from Tip-Top, The Wonder and others.

‘Tanks a Million!’ finds selections from the height of the fighting, and brings us head-on into the controversial arena of ethnic stereotyping. All I can say is what I always do: the times were different. Mercifully we’ve moved beyond the obvious institutionalised iniquities of casual racism and sexism and are much more tolerant today (unless you’re obese, gay, a smoker or childless and happy about it), but if antiquated attitudes and caricaturing might offend you, don’t read old comics – it’s your choice and your loss.

The strip that started this tirade was an example of Stymie and his Magic Wishbone from Radio Fun (a long-running strip with a black boy-tramp in the tradition of minstrel shows) from a chapter dealing with the comic strip love-affair with armoured vehicles and includes many less controversial examples from Tiger Tim’s Weekly, Knock-Out, Chips and Dandy, featuring stars such as Our Ernie, Our Gang, Stonehenge, Kit the Ancient Brit and Deed-A-Day Danny.

…And if you think we were hard on innocent coloured people just wait till you see the treatment dealt to Germans, Italians and Japanese by our patriotic cartoonists…

‘At Sea with the Navy!’ highlights nautical manoeuvres from Casey Court (Chips, by Albert Pease), Rip Van Wink (Beano, James Crichton), Lt. Daring and Jolly Roger (from Golden, by Roy Wilson, Billy Bunter (Knock-Out, by Frank Minnitt), Hairy Dan (Beano, Basil Blackaller) and Pitch and Toss (Funny Wonder, Roy Wilson again) whilst ‘Sinking the Subs’ takes us below the surface with Our Ernie, Desperate Dan, Koko, Pansy Potter, Alfie the Air Tramp and Billy Bunter.

Britain’s fledgling flying squad takes centre-stage with ‘In the Air with the R.A.F.’ featuring Freddie Crompton’s Tiny Tots, Korky the Cat from Dandy, The Gremlins (Knock-Out, by Fred Robinson) and Koko the Pup.

‘Awful Adolf and his Nasty Nazis!’ demonstrates just what we all thought about the Axis nations and even indulges in some highly personal attacks against prominent personages on the other side beginning with Sam Fair’s riotously ridiculing Addie and Hermy, (Beano‘s utterly unauthorised adventures of Hitler and Goering), whilst Our Ernie, Lord Snooty, Pitch and Toss, Big Eggo (Beano, by Reg Carter), Plum and Duff (Comic Cuts, Albert Pease) and the staggeringly offensive Musso the Wop – He’s a Big-a-Da-Flop, (Beano, Artie Jackson and others) all cheered up the home-front with devastating mockery.

‘Doing Their Bit’ gathers wartime exploits of the nation’s stars and celebrities (turning Britain’s long love affair with entertainment industry stars into another bullet at the Boche. Strips featuring Tommy Handley, Arthur Askey, Charlie Chaplin, Jack Warner, Flanagan and Allen, Haver and Lee, The Western Brothers, Sandy Powell, Old Mother Riley featuring Lucan & McShane, Claude Hulbert, Duggie Wakefield, Joe E. Brown, Harold Lloyd, Lupino Lane and Laurel and Hardy re-presented here were collectively illustrated by Reg and George Parlett, Tom Radford, John Jukes, Bertie Brown, Alex Akerbladh, George Heath, Norman Ward and Billy Wakefield.

The kids themselves are the stars of ‘Evacuation Saves the Nation!’ as our collective banishment of the cities’ children produced a wealth of intriguing possibilities for comics creators. Vicky the Vacky (Magic, George Drysdale), Our Happy Vaccies (Knock-Out, by Hugh McNeill) and Annie Vakkie (Knock-Out, by Frank Lazenby) showed readers the best way to keep their displaced chins up whilst ‘Blackout Blues!’ find the famous and commonplace alike suffering from night terrors.

Examples here include Grandma Jolly and her Brolly, Will Hay, the Master of Mirth, Ben and Bert, Barney Boko, Crusoe Kids, Grandfather Clock, Constable Cuddlecock and Big Ben and Little Len whilst ‘Gas Mask Drill’ sees the funny side of potential asphyxiation with choice strips such as Stan Deezy, Hungry Horace, Deed-A-Day Danny, Big Eggo, Good King Coke and Cinderella.

‘Barrage Balloons!’ lampoons the giant sky sausages that made life tricky for the Luftwaffe with selections from Luke and Len the Odd-Job Men (from Larks by Wally Robertson), It’s the Gremlins, Alfie the Air Tramp, and In Town this Week from Radio Fun, whilst ‘Tuning Up the A.R.P.!’ deals out the same treatment to the volunteers who patrolled our bombed-out streets after dark. The Air Raid Precautions patrols get a right sending up in strips starring Deed-A-Day Danny, Big Eggo, P.C. Penny, Ben and Bert, Marmy and His Ma, Lord Snooty and his Pals, The Tickler Twins in Wonderland, Our Ernie, Tootsy McTurk, Boy Biffo the Brave and Pa Perkins and his Son Percy.

The girls get a go in the vanguard with ‘Wow! Women of War!’ starring Dandy‘s Keyhole Kate and Meddlesome Matty (by Allan Morley and Sam Fair respectively), Dolly Dimple (Magic, Morley again), Tell Tale Tilly, Peggy the Pride of the Force, Pansy Potter the Strongman’s Daughter, Big Hearted Martha Our A.R.P. Nut and Kitty Clare’s Schooldays whilst the Home Guard stumble to the fore once more in a section entitled ‘Doing Their Best’ with examples from Tootsy McTurk (Magic, John Mason), Casey Court, Lord Snooty, Deed-A-Day Danny, and Big Eggo.

Imminent invasion was in the air and the cartoonist responded with measured insolence. ‘Hop It, Hitler!’ displays our fighting spirit with examples such as Bamboo Town (Dandy, Chick Gordon), Sandy and Muddy, Pansy Potter, the astonishingly un-PC Sooty Snowball, Hair-Oil Hal Your Barber Pal and Stonehenge Kit, whilst espionage antics are exposed in ‘I Spy Mit Mein Little Eye!’ in Laurie and Trailer the Secret Service Men, more Sandy and Muddy, Herr Paul Pry, Big Eggo and Lord Snooty.

‘Wireless War!’ celebrates both radio stars and enemy broadcasts with a selection from Tommy Handley, Troddles and his Pet Tortoise Tonky-Tonk, Happy Harry and Sister Sue, Crackers the Perky Pup, Our Gang and a couple of examples of John Jukes’ spectacularly wicked Radio Fun strip Lord Haw-Haw – The Broadcasting Humbug from Hamburg.

‘To Blazes With the Firemen!’ is a rather affectionate and jolly examination of one of the toughest of home-front duties with a selection of strips including Podge (who’s dad was a fire-fighter, drawn by Eric Roberts for Dandy), Casey Court, Pansy Potter and In Town This Week.

Rationing was never far from people’s minds and an art-form where the ultimate reward was usually “a slap-up feed” perfectly lambasted the measures in many strips. Examples here include The Bruin Boys from Tiny Tim’s Weekly, Freddy the Fearless Fly (Dandy, Allan Morley), Cyril Price’s vast ensemble cast from Casey Court (Chips), Our Ernie and Dudley Watkins’ Peter Piper from Magic, all in need of ‘Luvly Grub!’

Under the miscellaneous sub-headings of ‘Salvage’, ‘Comical Camouflage!’, ‘Workers Playtime!’ and ‘Allies’, strips featuring Ronnie Roy the Indiarubber Boy, Ding Dong Dally, Desperate Dan, Tin-Can Tommy the Clockwork Boy, Big Hearted Arthur and Dicky Murdoch and other stalwarts all gather hopeful momentum as the Big Push looms and this gloriously inventive and satisfying compilation heads triumphantly towards its conclusion.

‘V for Victory!’, wherein a telling gallery of strips celebrating the war’s end and better tomorrows features final sallies from Casey Court, Weary Willie and Tired Tim, a stunning Mickey Mouse Weekly cover by Victor Ibbotson, Its That Man Again – Tommy Handley, Laurel and Hardy and from Jingles, Albert Pease has the last word with ‘Charlie Chucklechops Speaking… About New Uses for Old War materials’…

Some modern fans find a steady diet of these veteran classics a little samey and formulaic – indeed I too have trouble with some of the scripts – but the astonishing talents of the assembled artists here just cannot be understated. These are great works by brilliant comic stylists which truly stand the test of time. Moreover, in these carefully selected, measured doses the tales here from a desperate but somehow more pleasant and even enviable time are utterly enchanting. This book is long overdue for a new edition and luckily for you is still available through many internet retailers.
Text and compilation © 1988 Denis Gifford. © 1988 Hawk Books. All rights reserved.

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Commando Annual 1989


By various (DC Thomson & Co)
ISBN: 0-85116-422-6

Dundee-based DC Thomson is probably the most influential comics publisher in British history. The Beano and The Dandy revolutionised children’s reading, the newspaper strips Oor Wullie and The Broons (both created by the legendary Dudley D. Watkins) have become a genetic marker for Scottishness and the uniquely British “working class hero” grew from the prose-packed pages of Adventure, Rover, Wizard, Skipper and such action-packed  picture papers as Victor, Hotspur and Warlord.

Their comics for girls also shaped generations and still evoke passionate memories – don’t take my word for it either – just ask your mum or grandmother about Judy, Bunty, Diana, Mandy and the rest….

In 1961 the company launched a digest-sized title called Commando. Broadly similar in dimensions to a slim paperback book, it offered 68 black and white pages per issue and an average of two panels a page. Each issue told a complete war story (generally based in World War I or II – although all theatres of conflict have featured since) and told tasteful yet gripping stories of valour and heroism in stark dramas which came charged with grit and authenticity. The fully painted covers made them look more like novels than comics and they were a huge, instant success. They’re still being published.

A number of these stirring sagas have recently been collected in sturdy, capacious hardback volumes, re-presenting  a dozen classics at a time – and I highly recommend them (see for example Commando: True Brit in our own archive section) but in its decades of unflinching service Commando has occasionally produced other collections such as this redoubtable annual from 1989 (the first of two) which contains shorter stories in a more traditional panel format, rendered in varying degrees of colour and offering all new stories.

Because of previous company policy these tales are all uncredited, (happily not the case nowadays) but as I’d rather not prove my ignorance by guessing who did what, I’m saying nothing and you’ll have to be content with the work itself, although the many fan-sites should be able to provide information for the dedicated researcher. Typically when looking at British comics Gold, this book is readily available through a number of online retailers and wonderfully reasonable in price.

Behind the stunning wraparound cover by Ian Kennedy lie seven cracking yarns. In full colour ‘The Young ‘Un!’ follows coal ship crewman Joe Simes as he struggles to come to terms with his father’s death; a victim of the Royal Navy’s foolish, doctrinaire policies – or at least that what he thought until he joined up… whilst ‘No Surrender’ sees intransigent troublemaker Angus McKay fight his own comrades and Germans with equal passion during a mission to Norway and ‘Duel in the Sun’ pits rebellious Australian pilot Mark Hudson against his own commanders when all he really wants is to kill the Japanese genius shooting down allied pilots as if they were sitting ducks…

‘Killed in Action’ is the part-colour tale (black, white, grey and yellow) and sees cruel, cowardly lieutenant Vivian Fawcett-Bligh challenged by a common soldier who knows all his secrets. Set in the African desert in 1941, it doesn’t end the way you might expect… ‘Big Bird, Little Friend’ is another spectacular full-colour air adventure featuring two rival pilots – one British and the other an American – whose bitter quarrel is finally resolved in the flak-blistered skies over Europe and ‘The Good Soldier’ looks at the war through German eyes as Panzer commander Martin Winter becomes increasingly disaffected and appalled by SS atrocities on the Russian Front…

The strips conclude with another half-colour adventure ‘The Three Musketeers’: wherein three boyhood chums are reunited with explosive results on the beaches of Dunkirk, and this classy package also contains a wealth of feature pages and many brilliant painted pin-up pages.

So ubiquitous and effective were Thomson’s war publications that they moulded the character of three generations of boys – and continue to do so eight times every month. This magical slice of the Blitz Spirit is a wonderful example of purely British comic-making: rousing, passionate and winningly understated, so if you’re looking for a more home-grown comics experience, well-written and wonderfully illustrated, get some in and check this out…
© 1988 D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Blazing Combat


By Archie Goodwin & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-366-8

If you’re a bold young publisher or passionate young author you know you must be doing something right when the American government is out to get you. At least that must have felt the case for struggling print entrepreneur Jim Warren and writer/editor Archie Goodwin in the months that followed the launch of the war anthology comics magazine Blazing Combat.

Warren had originally established himself with the black and white B-Movie periodical Famous Monsters of Filmland and satire magazine Help!, when in 1965 he took his admiration of the legendary 1950s EC Comics to its logical conclusion by reviving the concept of horror short stories for older fans by launching Creepy. Stuffed with clever, sardonic, tongue-in-cheek comics chillers illustrated by the top artists in the field (many of them ex-EC stars) he circumvented the all-powerful Comics Code Authority – which had ended EC’s glory days and eventually their entire comics line – by publishing as a newsstand magazine.

It was a no-lose proposition. Older readers didn’t care to be associated with “kid’s stuff” comic-books whilst magazines had tempting cachet (i.e. mild nudity and little more explicit violence) for readers of a transitional age; moreover the standard monochrome format was a quarter of the costs of colour periodicals.

Creepy was a huge and influential hit, especially among the increasingly rebellious teen market, often cited as a source of inspiration for the nascent underground commix movement and feeding on the growing renewed public interest in the supernatural. In true Darwinian “Grow or Die” mode Warren looked around for a new project.

At this time the war in Vietnam was starting to escalate, and the 1948 Selective Service Act – which had kept the Military, National Guard and Federal Reserve forces “topped up” with able-bodied men throughout the Cold War and Korean “Police Action” – was increasingly informing young men that they had been called up to “Advise” their allies in Indo-China on how to kill communists…

Archie Goodwin was a young cartoonist and writer working as an assistant art director at Redbook magazine. Another passionate EC fan, he had sold a script to Warren which appeared in Creepy #1, becoming its editor with #4, and was promptly offered the editor’s chair on Warren’s latest brainstorm. If EC horror had come back into vogue wouldn’t that audience also like a mag based on the old company’s landmark war anthologies Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales?

We’ll never know.

Nowadays controversy sells and there’s no such thing as bad publicity but in 1965 it was a different world and these passionately realistic, uncompromising tales of battle were deemed anti-war (can that ever be a bad thing?) and anti-American: not by the readers but by the distributors paid to get Blazing Combat onto the shelves.

With the second quarterly issue copies were arbitrarily being left in warehouses, the American Legion publicly denounced the magazine – presumably for not showing war as a fun-filled, glorious picnic – and US Military authorities had banned the publication from all their PX’s (the Post Exchange and its Navy, Marine and Air Force equivalents were and still are the One-Stop-Shop of US bases and sold everything from reading materials to off-duty shoes – they were a major generator of comic-book sales) citing a number of Vietnam themed tales which implied that American soldiers were killing innocent civilians.

The public revelation of the My Lai massacre of as many as 507 villagers by American soldiers remained covered up until 1969…

Accompanied by fascinating and frankly gob-smacking interviews with Warren and Goodwin this wonderful, astounding collection re-presents all four of these monochrome masterpieces (which ran over a year from October 1965 to July 1966) in a rousing tome filled with trenchant, unforgettable war-stories by some of the greatest artists in the industry.

The moral body-blows and ethical challenges begin with ‘Viet-Cong!’(illustrated by Joe Orlando), just another grisly day in the field for our boys: marching, searching, torturing prisoners… followed by Angelo Torres’ ‘Aftermath!’, a paean to pride and stupidity set during the Civil War. Next is a terse, informative drama about the ‘Flying Tigers!’ drawn by aviation ace George Evans, and disturbing fable about ultimate objectives during the War in the Pacific, ‘Long View!’ by Gray Morrow.

Reed Crandall illustrated ‘Cantigny!’ decrying the patriotic madness of WWI, and Alex Toth drew a beautiful ‘Combat Quiz’ feature, whilst Tex Blaisdell, Russ Jones and Maurice Whitman collaborated on the rousing tale of Revolutionary War hero ‘Mad Anthony!’ The first issue concluded with John Severin’s gritty cautionary WWII tale ‘Enemy!’

‘Landscape!’ is the Vietnam tale that caused all that long-ago furore, once more drawn by Orlando, whilst Crandall tried his hand at Minutemen and Lobsterbacks (rebellious Colonials and British regulars to you) in the painfully ironic story of ‘Saratoga!’ and Korea fell under the spotlight in Al McWilliams’ stirring ‘Mig Alley!’

Orlando recaptured the mania of the Spanish-American War of 1898 in ‘Face to Face!‘ whilst the dream-team of Torres and Al Williamson delivered a brutal classic of tank warfare in ‘Kasserine Pass!’ and Alex Toth’s design and greytone mastery made ‘Lone Hawk’ as perfect a tale of WWI aerial combat as you will ever see…

There’s another (uncredited) ‘Comics Quiz’ to solve before Severin’s chilling psycho-drama ‘Holding Action’ ended that controversial second issue.

The magazine was already doomed by the time ‘Special Forces!’ from Joe Orlando opened the third issue. It’s gory, blasé, day-in-the-life attitudes nicely counter-pointed the human tragedy and triumph of Crandall’s Civil War shocker ‘Foragers’ and the chilling acceptance of the war-obsessed survivors in ‘U-Boat’; Gene Coloan’s first contribution to this ill-starred gem of a series.

Alex Toth co-wrote the ambiguously post-apocalyptic ‘Survival!’, but the potent reductionist minimalism of the art is all his own, whilst Wally Wood wrote and illustrated a slick, stirring thriller in ‘The Battle of Britain’ – the only tale on which Goodwin had no input, and the first to feature non-American protagonists…

The Indian Wars of 1885 provided Gray Morrow with an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the only true winner of genocide in ‘Water Hole’, and the penultimate issue concluded with a saga of unjustified assumptions in Severin’s beguiling Pacific War parable ‘Souvenirs!’

Gene Colan illustrated the final Vietnam tale ‘Conflict!’, an impassioned tale of racism under fire, George Evans returned to the killer skies of WWI in the bloody history lesson ‘How It Began!’ which leads directly into – visually, at least – the best thing in the book.

Alex Toth revisited the glory of his landmark EC tale ‘F86: Sabre Jet!’ (Frontline Combat #12, 1953; track it down – preferably in black and white – it is utterly indescribable in its pictorial brilliance) with another saga of Jet Age combat: ‘The Edge’ a stark, yet oddly comforting homily.

‘Give and Take’ by hyper-realist Russ Heath is a perfect example of the anti-war philosophy and hauntingly lovely, whilst Wally Wood’s sleek imagery and finishing clearly shows how Hitler’s mad arrogance lost the war by mis-using the incredible jet fighter ‘ME-262!’

Severin’s final contribution is the gallows-grim lark of WWI ‘The Trench!’ whilst Reed Crandall’s immense versatility is displayed in a two-tier tale of legendary holding actions. Co-written by the artist, British troops retreating in Greece in 1941 recall another time dedicated soldiers bought time for their nation, living and dying at ‘Thermopylae!’

This volume’s comic section ends in the only way it can, with the grimly pointless, nasty story of military pragmatism and ruthless necessity, with conscience the first casualty, as German and American troops respectively mop up after a ‘Night Drop!’ illustrated with mordant aplomb by Angelo Torres in his too-infrequently seen wash and tone style.

After the aforementioned interviews by Mike Catron this incredible volume ends with all of Frank Frazetta’s original colour cover paintings.

Blazing Combat is a singular vision, filled with artistic wonders and brimming with some of the best and certainly most impassioned writing the gentle genius Archie Goodwin ever penned in his glittering career. This is probably the only book of war comics that comes anywhere near the power, artistry and impact of our own Charley’s War. Whatever your reasons for loving comics you should read this book – and if you don’t like comics at all, read it anyway and have your mind changed for you…

This collection © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. Contents © 1965, 1966 Warren Publishing renewed and assigned to J. Michael Catron 1993. All other material © the respective individual holders. All rights reserved.

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Tales of the Green Beret Books 1-3


By Robin Moore & Joe Kubert (Blackthorne/Comic Strip Preserves)
ISBNs: 0-932629-36-9, 0-932629-48-2 and 0-932629-59-8

If you’re old enough to remember the Viet Nam conflict you’ll understand when I say that it was a war that changed the World’s perception of America. It marked a growth of civil resistance, student unrest and all-pervasive questioning of previously accepted authority. People thought differently after it ended. Most had their eyes opened: many screwed them tighter shut…

It is something we should be aware of now more than ever…

In 1965 a blockbuster book by novelist Robin Moore rocketed to the top of the bestseller lists, generating a film, a hit song and a highly controversial syndicated comic strip. Moore, possibly one of the very first “Embedded Journalists”, trained with and then accompanied America’s elite combat group, the US Army Special Forces, for two years, and was clearly proud to be counted amongst “The Green Berets.”

The United States Army Special Forces is a Special Operations Force designed to carry out six specific briefs: Unconventional Warfare, Foreign Internal Defense, Special Reconnaissance, Direct Military Action, Hostage Rescue and Counter-Terrorism. Units usually carry out these missions with foreign troops on foreign soil, and their remit also includes Search and Rescue, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance. In later years they have also specialized in Landmine Removal, Counter-Proliferation, Psychological Operations, Manhunting, and Counter-Drug operations.

The unit was formed in 1952 as part of the US Army Psychological Warfare Division, designated the 10th Special Forces Group at the new Psychological Warfare School (which became the John F. Special Warfare Center and School just before these strips premiered).

During the 1960s they were mostly employed in Southeast Asia, South America and Europe in their Unconventional Warfare capacity. The group motto is “De Oppresso Liber” – To Liberate the Oppressed – and relates to their most frequent function: training and advising foreign indigenous forces.

Oddly, the Green Beret itself is a Scottish tradition dating from World War II, when American OSS agents and US Army Rangers (their equivalent to our Commandos) were trained by the Royal Marines and awarded the prestigious headgear for successfully completing the terrifying Commando Training course.

The hats were banned by the US military, but worn clandestinely – and illegally – until 1961, when President Kennedy personally authorized them as a signal of the caliber of soldier able to win one: “a symbol of excellence, a badge of courage, a mark of distinction in the fight for freedom.”

This gesture forever bound the Green Berets to the memory of the murdered President, as the very first week of the strip stirringly affirms. Tales of the Green Berets comes from a time when the USA led the Free World (now there’s a phrase to pick apart semantically), politicians were generally considered to be open and honest and the CIA were good guys. As usual when nations go to war, idealism is always the first casualty, closely followed by young men and foreign civilians…

Fully aware of the value of favourable PR, the strip was created at the urging of Lt. General William Yarborough, who had sponsored Moore’s research and arduous training. He was the current commander of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and was keen to see the military displayed in a positive light. After a brief but abortive initial opening, the strip launched as a daily on April 4th and Sunday feature on April 10th 1966 from the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, with scripts by Howard Liss and art from the immensely talented Joe Kubert, whose work on DC’s war comic-books was swiftly making him America’s top war artist.

The tales featured a fictionalised reporter, Chris Tower, who had trained with the Green Berets for an article and was now posted to Vietnam by his newspaper magnate father to report on the war…

In the first adventure here ‘Kidnap Ksor Tonn’ Tower meets up with an old friend and becomes embroiled in an operation to abduct a prominent Viet Cong commander: an impressive tale of jeopardy and double-cross. These stories are surprisingly even-handed in their treatment of the conflict, as ‘Sucker Bait’ sees Tower visiting a jungle village of peasants caught in the middle of the war, with heartbreaking consequences…

This is followed by an exotic view of life in Sin City Saigon entitled ‘Chris Kidnapped’ but the perpetrators aren’t political, merely greedy students looking to make some quick American cash…

The first volume ends with the opening shots in a new conflict as Chris flies to Central America to join ‘Operation Oilspot’…

The saga continues in volume two as Chris becomes deeply involved in an ideological battle between the poor peasants of San Marco and Marxist insurgents. In this war for hearts and minds the Green Berets are only “observers”, teaching and training the local soldiery and helping to construct roads and a bridge, but the insurgents are determined to sabotage the project. Moreover they are not so much dedicated communists as profiteering bandits with an eye to the main chance…

This is an impressive saga full of genuine moral conflict and personal tragedy, whilst the next tale ‘Freedom Flight’, switches locales to East Berlin and genres to pure espionage as Tower and a European team warm up the Cold War to smuggle a family through Checkpoint Charlie for a new life beyond the Iron Curtain. Once more the story breaks at a critical moment, to resume in the third and final volume.

On concluding ‘Freedom Flight’ Tower returns to Southeast Asia to examine the links between South Vietnamese Generals – ostensibly the allies of the Americans – and American organised crime. ‘The Syndicate’ is a tense thriller which shows that the modern problem with Vietnamese drug lords was an open secret even in 1967, and as the spellbinding action simultaneously takes place in Asia and America, clearly reveals that the situation was in large part self-inflicted…

This final volume concludes with the somewhat truncated yet engagingly complex political drama ‘Prince Synoc’, wherein a Special Forces trained son of the King of Thailand apparently defects to a faction of the anti-American, anti-monarchist Thai Army of Liberation.

All is not as it seems though, as Tower and the local Green Berets discover… The third and final volume ends here on a rather inconclusive note with the December 31st 1967 Sunday instalment, but I’m not really surprised that these volumes never finished reprinting the entire strip…

The feature was in strange and controversial straits by this time. Although still popular, it had become an easy target for anti-war protesters, with writing campaigns and even picketing of papers that carried it. Kubert’s usually inspired and grippingly evocative textured art suffered (it looks to me like fellow DC artist Jack Abel has ghosted the inking on more than one occasion), and Joe left the strip in January 1968. His last Sunday page was January 7th and his final daily ran three days later. The series continued for a few months more with veteran Tarzan artist John Celardo as illustrator, before succumbing to the inevitable.

Now however, with the distance of decades, surely it is time for this superb and seminal series to be revisited and given the complete deluxe treatment. These cheap and cheerful Blackthorne editions are scarce, often poorly printed and incomplete. The first abortive tale ‘Viet Cong Cowboy’ was not included and since the stories are so very readable it seems only right to also include the missing Celardo strips. After all, this man was also a major artistic talent and I for one would love to review his later efforts…

One more for the graphic novel wish-list then…
© 1986 Tribune Media Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Enemy Ace: War in Heaven


By Garth Ennis, Chris Weston, Christian Alamy & Russ Heath (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-982-5

Enemy Ace first appeared as a back-up in issue #151 of DC’s flagship war comic Our Army at War: home of the already legendary Sergeant Rock (cover-dated February 1965). Produced by the dream team of Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert during a period when the ongoing Vietnam conflict was beginning to tear American society apart the series told bitter tales of valour and honour from the point of view of German WWI fighter pilot Hans Von Hammer: a noble warrior fighting for his country in a conflict that was swiftly excising all trace of such outmoded concepts from the business of mass-killing.

The tales, loosely based on Red Baron Manfred von Richthofen, were a magnificent tribute to soldiering whilst condemning the madness of war, produced during the turbulent days of the Vietnam War. They are still moving and powerful beyond belief, as is George Pratt’s seminal 1989 sequel, Enemy Ace: War Idyll.

In 2001, Garth Ennis – no stranger to combat fiction – took another look at the flyer on the other side in a two part miniseries that transplanted him to World War II, and a far less defensible position…

Bavaria, 1942 and forty-six years old Baron Hans von Hammer is visited by an old flying comrade urging him to come out of retirement and serve his country. No lover of Nazism, the old ace has kept himself isolated until now but Germany’s attack on Russia has proven a disastrous blunder, and this last plea is a much warning as request.

The neophyte pilots on the Eastern Front need his experience and leadership whereas Hitler’s goons don’t need much excuse to remove a dissident thorn…

Based loosely on the lives of such German pilots as Adolf Galland, book I of War in Heaven (illustrated by Chris Weston) finds von Hammer as indomitable as ever in the killer skies but unable to come to terms with the increasing horror and stupidity of the conflict and its instigators. The phrase “My Country, Right or Wrong” leaves an increasingly sour taste in his mouth as the last of his nation’s young men die above Soviet fields…

Book II is set in 1945 and sees Germany on the brink of defeat with von Hammer flying an experimental early jet fighter (a Messerschmitt 262, if you’re interested) shooting down not nearly enough Allied bombers to make a difference and still annoying the wrong people at Nazi High Command. He knows the war is over but his sense of duty and personal honour won’t let him quit. He is resigned to die in the bloody skies that had been his second home, but then he is shot down and parachutes into a concentration camp named Dachau…

With art from comics legend Russ Heath, this stirring tale ends with a triumph of integrity over patriotism: a perfect end to the war record of a true soldier.

This slim volume is supplemented by a classic anti-war tale of WWI by Kanigher and Kubert from Star-Spangled War Stories #139. ‘Death Whispers… Death Screams!’ explores the Enemy Ace’s childhood and noble lineage as he endures the daily atrocities of being one of the world’s last warrior knights in a mechanised, conveyor-belt conflict.

Here is another gripping, compelling, deeply incisive exploration of war, its repercussions, both good and bad, and the effects that combat has on singular men. This should be mandatory reading for every child who wants to be a soldier…

© 2001, 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Jack Kirby’s The Losers


By Jack Kirby with D. Bruce Berry and Mike Royer (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-184856-194-6

¡Perfect Christmas Present Alert! – for boys of all ages

There’s a glorious profusion of Jack Kirby material around these days and this astounding collection of his too-brief run on the DC war comic Our Fighting Forces is for far too many an unknown delight. Famed for his larger than life characters and gigantic, cosmic imaginings, the King was a decent, spiritual man from another generation, and one who had experienced human horror and bravery as an ordinary grunt during World War II. Whether in the world-weary verité of his 1950s collaborations with Joe Simon or the flamboyant bravado of his Marvel creation Sgt. Fury, his combat comics looked real: grimy, tired, battered yet indomitable.

In 1974, with his newest creations inexplicably not setting any sales records at DC, and as he tentatively considered a return to Marvel, he took over the creative chores on an established but always floundering series that had run in Our Fighting Forces since 1970.

The Losers were an elite unit of American soldiers formed by amalgamating three old war series together. Gunner and Sarge (later supplemented by the Fighting Devil Dog “Pooch”) were Pacific-based Marines; debuting in All-American Men of War #67, (March1959) and running for fifty issues in Our Fighting Forces (#45-94, May1959-August 1965), whilst Captain Johnny Cloud – Navaho Ace and native American fighter pilot – shot down his first bogie in All-American Men of War #82. He flew solo until issue #115, (1966), and the final component of the Land/Air/Sea team was filled by Captain Storm, a disabled PT Boat commander (he had a wooden leg) who had his own 18 issue title from 1964 to 1967. All three series were created by comics warlord Robert Kanigher.

The characters had all pretty much passed their sell-by dates when they teamed-up as guest-stars in a Haunted Tank tale in 1969 (G.I. Combat #138 October), but these “Losers” found a new resonance together in the relevant, disillusioned, cynical Vietnam years and their somewhat nihilistic, doom-laden group anti-hero adventures took the lead spot in Our Fighting Forces #123 (January/February 1970), written by Kanigher and illustrated by such giants as Ken Barr, Russ Heath, Sam Glanzman, John Severin and Joe Kubert.

With the tag-line “even when they win , they lose” the team saw action all over the globe, winning critical acclaim and a far-too-small, passionate following until #151 (November 1974) when Kirby was given complete control of the series. His radically different approach was highly controversial at the time but the passage of years has allowed a fairer appraisal and whilst never really in tune with the aesthetic of DC’s other war titles the King’s run was a spectacular and singularly intriguing examination of the human condition under the worst of all possible situations.

In ‘Kill Me with Wagner’ the Losers infiltrate a French village to rescue a concert pianist before the Nazis can capture her, but the hapless propaganda pawn has a tremendous advantage, as nobody knows what she looks like. As with most of this series a feeling of inevitable, onrushing Gotterdammerung permeates this tale: a sense that worlds are ending and new one’s a-coming. The action culminates in a catastrophic wave of destruction that is pure Kirby magic.

Most of DC’s war titles sported Kubert covers, but #152 featured the first in a startling sequence of hypnotic Kirby illustrations, almost abstract in delivery, to introduce the team to the no-hope proposition of ‘A Small Place in Hell!’ as they found themselves the advance guard for an Allied push, but dropped in the wrong town: one that has not been cleared… The spectacular action is augmented by a delightful two page Kirby fact feature: Sub-machine guns of WWII, and it should be noted that this collection is also peppered with un-inked Kirby pencilled pages and roughs.

Our Fighting Forces #153 is one of those stories that made the traditionalists squeak. Behind another Kirby cover, the story of ‘Devastator vs. Big Max’ veered dangerously close to science fiction, but the admittedly eccentric plan to destroy a giant German rail-mounted super-cannon wasn’t any stranger than many schemes the Boffins dreamed up to disinform the enemy during the actual conflict…

That tale, with two beautiful info-pages on military uniforms and insignia, is followed by a superb parable about personal honour. Behind another bombastic Kirby cover the team deployed to the Pacific to remove a Japanese officer who’s devotion to ‘Bushido’ had inspired superhuman resistance from his men. The means used to remove him were far from clean or creditable…

Preceded by two pages on war vehicles and a wonderful pencil cover-rough, ‘The Partisans!’ (OFF #155) took the Losers into very dark territory indeed (with two pages on artillery pieces and the pencils for the cover to that issue, before the team returned to America for ‘Good-bye Broadway… Hello Death!’ wherein the team experienced the home-front joys of New York whilst hunting for a notorious U-Boat commander who escaped the sinking of his submarine. Naturally there’s more to the story than first appears… This fast-paced thriller is complemented by a history of battle headgear and another penciled rough.

Issues #157 and 158 comprised a two-part saga about theft, black marketeering and espionage featuring the truly unique personage ‘Panama Fattie!’, whose criminal activities almost altered the course of the war; a tale concluded in the highly-charged ‘Bombing Out on the Panama Canal’ with accompanying pages on ships, subs and Nazi super-planes. Behind the last Kirby cover ‘Mile-a-Minute Jones!’ in #159, is a smaller-scaled duel between a black runner who embarrassed the Nazis at the 1936 Olympics and the Nazi ubermensch he defeated, which reignites on the battlefield with the Losers relegated to subordinate roles.

Kubert and Ernie Chan handled the three remaining covers of Kirby’s run, an indication that his attentions were diverted elsewhere, but the stories remained powerful and deeply personal explorations of combat. In ‘Ivan’ (OFF #160) the Losers go undercover as German soldiers on the Eastern Front and have an unpleasant encounter with Russian Nazi sympathizers whose appetite for atrocity surpasses anything they have ever seen before (supplemented by a two page tanks feature) whilst the hellish jungles of the Burma campaign prove an unholy backdrop for the traumatic combat shocker ‘The Major’s Dream.’

The volume and Kirby’s war work ends with a sly tribute to his 1942 co-creation the Boy Commandos (for more of which get yourself a copy of The Best of Simon and Kirby. ‘Gung-Ho!’ sees young Gunner training a band of war orphans in Marine tactics only to find fun turn to dire necessity when the Germans overrun their “safe” position. This is an optimistic, all-out action romp that ends on a note of hope and anticipation as the King made his departure. With issue #163 Kanigher resumed the story reins, with artists like Jack Lehti, Ric Estrada and George Evans illustrating, and the Losers returned to their pre-Kirby style and status, with readers hardly acknowledging the detour into another kind of war.

Jack Kirby is unique and uncompromising. If you’re not a fan or simply not prepared to see for yourself what all the fuss has been about then no words of mine will change your mind. That doesn’t alter the fact that Kirby’s work since 1939 shaped the entire American comics scene, affected the lives of billions of readers and thousands of creators in all areas of artistic endeavour around the world for generations and which is still, more than 15 years after his death, garnering new fans and apostles from the young and naive to the most cerebral of intellectuals. Jack’s work is instantly accessible, irresistibly visceral, deceptively deep whilst being simultaneously mythic and human.

These tales of purely mortal heroism are in many ways the most revealing, honest and insightful of Jack’s incredibly vast accumulated works, and even the true devotee often forgets their very existence. As Neil Gaiman’s introduction succinctly declaims, “they are classic Kirby… and even if you don’t like war comics, you may be in for a surprise…”

You really don’t want to miss that, do you?

© 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Enemy Ace: War Idyll


By George Pratt (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-78-1

During the 1960s Marvel gave industry leader National (now DC) Comics an artistic and sales drubbing, overhauling their twenty year position as industry leader – but only in the resurgent genre of super-heroes. In such areas as kids stuff, comedy and romance they still lagged behind, and in the venerable and gritty war-comics market they rated lower even than Charlton.

Admittedly they weren’t really trying, with only the highly inconsistent Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos as a publication of any longevity, but that didn’t stop National’s editors and creators from forging ahead and inventing a phenomenal number of memorable series and characters to thrill and inform a generation very much concerned with all aspects of military life.

Enemy Ace first appeared as a back-up in issue #151 of the flagship war comic Our Army at War: home of the already legendary Sergeant Rock (cover-dated February 1965). Produced by the dream team of Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert it told bitter tales of valour and honour from the point of view of German WWI fighter pilot Hans Von Hammer: a noble warrior fighting for his country in a conflict that was swiftly excising all trace of such outmoded concepts from the business of mass-killing.

The tales, loosely based on Red Baron Manfred von Richthofen, were a magnificent tribute to soldiering whilst condemning the madness of war, produced during the turbulent days of the Vietnam War. They are still moving and powerful beyond belief.

As is their seminal sequel, Enemy Ace: War Idyll. Produced in moody, misty, strikingly sombre images by painter George Pratt, it follows the quest of troubled veteran Edward Mannock, recently returned Viet Nam grunt turned photo-journalist, and a man desperately seeking answers to imponderable questions and great truths to cure the damage his combat experiences have caused.

1969, and Mannock’s search takes a pivotal turn when on a routine assignment he discovers Von Hammer. The mythic “Hammer of Hell” is dying in a German nursing home but instantly sees that he and the distraught young man share a deep and common bond…

This is an astounding, deeply incisive exploration of war, its repercussions, both good and bad, and the effects that combat has on singular men. War Idyll is visceral, poetic, emotive, evocative and terrifyingly instructive: with as much impact as All Quiet on the Western Front or Charley’s War. Every child who wants to be a soldier should be made to read this book.

You don’t want me to talk about it, but you do need to experience it, and once you have you’ll want to share that experience with others…
© 1990 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.