![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Goddamn-this-war.jpg\")
\nBy Tardi<\/b> & Jean-Pierre Verney<\/b>, translated by Helga Dascher<\/b> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-60699-582-2<\/p>\n
\nBy Tardi<\/b> & Jean-Pierre Verney<\/b>, translated by Helga Dascher<\/b> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-60699-582-2<\/p>\n
For years I’ve been declaring that Charley’s War<\/b> was the best story about the Great War ever created and, while I’m still convinced of that fact, there’s a strong contender for the title in the astonishing award-winning conception C’\u00c3\u00a9tait la guerre des tranch\u00c3\u00a9es<\/i><\/b> by cartoonist Jacques Tardi which was first published in France in 1993 and released as an English edition by Fantagraphics in 2010.<\/p>\n
And now It Was the War of the Trenches!<\/b> has been supplemented by an even more impressive and heart-rending notional sequel\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Credited with creating a new style of expressionistic illustration dubbed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the New Realism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, Tardi is one of the greatest comics creators in the world, blessed with a singular vision and adamantine ideals, even apparently refusing his country’s greatest honour through his wish to be completely free to say and create what he wants.<\/p>\n
He was born in the Commune of Valence, Dr\u00c3\u00b4me in August 1946 and subsequently studied at \u00c3\u2030cole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and the prestigious Parisian \u00c3\u2030cole Nationale Sup\u00c3\u00a9rieure des arts D\u00c3\u00a9coratifs before launching his career in comics in 1969 at the home of modern French comics: Pilote<\/i><\/b>.<\/p>\n
From illustrating stories by Jean Giraud, Serge de Beketch and Pierre Christian, he moved on to Westerns, crime tales and satirical works in magazines such as Record<\/i><\/b>, Lib\u00c3\u00a9ration<\/i><\/b>, Charlie Mensuel<\/i><\/b> and L’\u00c3\u2030cho des Savanes<\/i><\/b> whilst graduating into adapting prose novels by Louis-Ferdinand C\u00c3\u00a9line and L\u00c3\u00a9o Malet.<\/p>\n
The latter’s detective hero Nestor Burma <\/i>became the subject of all-new albums written and drawn by Tardi once the established literary canon was exhausted and led in 1976 to the creation of Polonius<\/i> in M\u00c3\u00a9tal Hurlant<\/i><\/b> and the legendary Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Ad\u00c3\u00a8le Blanc-Sec<\/i> – an epic ongoing period fantasy adventure series which ran in the daily Sud-Ouest<\/i><\/b>. The series numbers ten volumes thus far and is still being added to.<\/p>\n
The passionate creator has also crafted many crushingly anti-war books and stories (Adieu Brindavoine<\/i><\/b>, C’\u00c3\u00a9tait la guerre des tranch\u00c3\u00a9es<\/i><\/b>, Le trou d’obus <\/i><\/b>and more) dealing with the plight of the common soldier, written novels, created radio series, worked in movies, and co-created (with writer Jean Vautrin) Le Cri du Peuple<\/i><\/b> – a quartet of albums about the Parisienne revolt of the Communards.<\/p>\n
Whilst his WWI creations are loosely inspired by the experiences of his grandfather, his 2012 graphic novel Moi Ren\u00c3\u00a9 Tardi, prisonnier de guerre au Stalag IIB<\/i><\/b> reveals the experiences of his father, a POW in the second conflict to ravage France in a century.<\/p>\n
Far too few of this master’s creations are available in English (barely a dozen out of more than fifty) but, thanks to NBM, iBooks and Fantagraphics, we’re quickly catching up\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
A lavish and subtle hardback in full colour and moody, evocative tonal sequences (originally released as six newspaper-format pamphlets as Putain de Guerre! <\/i><\/b>then collected in two albums), <\/i><\/b>Goddamn This War!<\/b> traces the course of the conflict through the experiences of an anonymous French \u00e2\u20ac\u0153grunt\u00e2\u20ac\u009d lucky, devious and cynically suspicious enough to survive; relating the horrific, boring, scary, disgusting and just plain stupid course of an industrialised war managed by privileged, inbred idiots who think they’re playing games and restaging Napoleon’s cavalry campaigns, as seen from the perspective of the poor sods actually being gassed and bombed and shot at\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Divided into five chapter-years running from ‘1914′<\/i> to ‘1919’<\/i> (the global killing didn’t stop just because the Germans signed an Armistice in 1918 – just ask the Turks, Armenians, Russians and other Balkan nations forgotten when the shooting officially stopped), the narration is stuffed with the kind of facts and trivia you won’t find in history books as our frustrated and disillusioned protagonist staggers from campaign to furlough to what his bosses call victory, noting no credible differences between himself and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Boche\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on the other side of the wire, but huge gulfs between the men with rifles and the toffs in brass on both sides\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Moreover this staggeringly emotional testament is backed up and supplemented by a reproduction of ‘The Song of Craonne’<\/i> – a ditty so seditious that French soldiers were executed for singing it – and a capacious, revelatory year-by-year photo-essay by historian, photographer and collector Jean-Pierre Verney. His World War I: an Illustrated Chronology<\/i> chillingly shows the true faces and forces of war and is alone worth the price of admission\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\nGoddamn This War! (Putain de Guerre!) \u00c2\u00a9 2013 Editions Casterman. This edition \u00c2\u00a9 2013 Fantagraphics Books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Tardi & Jean-Pierre Verney, translated by Helga Dascher (Fantagraphics Books) ISBN: 978-1-60699-582-2 For years I’ve been declaring that Charley’s War was the best story about the Great War ever created and, while I’m still convinced of that fact, there’s a strong contender for the title in the astonishing award-winning conception C’\u00c3\u00a9tait la guerre des … <\/p>\n