War comics
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War comics is a genre of comic books that gained popularity in English-speaking countries following the Second World War.
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[edit] History
[edit] American war comics
Shortly after the birth of the modern comic book in the mid- to late 1930s, comics publishers began including stories of wartime adventures in the multi-genre omnibus titles then popular as a format. Even prior to the U.S. involvement in World War II, comic books such as Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941) depicted superheroes fighting Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. In the post-war era, comic books devoted solely to war stories began appearing, and gained popularity through the 1950s. Several anthologies by various publishers began to appear, such as Frontline Combat by EC. The most prolific publisher of war comics was Charlton Comics who produced a wide variety of titles beginning in the 1950s, such as Battlefield Action, though the mainstream publishers such as DC also began to produce war titles, which gained in popularity in the United States and Canada even during the Vietnam War. The titles tended to concentrate on US military depictions, generally in World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War.
In the 1960s, several recurring characters began to appear in mainstream comic lines, including Sgt. Rock and The Haunted Tank in the DC line. These recurring characters began as regular "guests" of anthology titles such as Our Army at War and later graduated to their own titles. Marvel Comics also produced war titles, notably Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. Warren Publishing published a black-and-white comics magazine Blazing Combat devoted to authentically drawn and researched combat stories with a self-professed anti-war slant.
[edit] End of the Silver Age
By the late 1980s, a great number of venerable war titles (most of which were either anthologies or else World War II themed titles) from the late 1950s and 1960s "Silver Age of Comic Books" had died out, though newer titles were still debuting. Notable among these was Marvel's the 'Nam which debuted in 1987 and was based during the first year on writer Doug Murray's actual Vietnam experiences (though it followed fictional character Ed Marks) and written in "real time" following a single character through his tour of duty and then progressing through every month of the Vietnam conflict from 1966 to 1972.
Writer Doug Murray opined that his proposal for a Vietnam-war themed comic did not look promising in this period: "I never expected anything to come of it because war books were already pretty much dead at that point in 1985".[1]
Also from Marvel in the 1980s was the toy tie-in G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero which focused on a fictional counter-terrorist team in a contemporary setting, and a limited run of Tales of the Marine Corps, similar in tone and style to Charlton's Fightin' line of war anthologies.
Popular titles which ended long runs (over 100 issues) in the 1980s included:
- Sgt. Rock (DC - includes a retitling of the earlier Our Army At War, the combined run was over 400 issues from 1952 to 1988)[2]
- G.I. Combat (DC)
- Our Fighting Forces (DC)
- All American Men of War (DC)
- The Unknown Soldier (DC - a retitling of Star Spangled War Stories that ran from 1952 to 1977, then continued as The Unknown Soldier from 1977-1982,with number 268 the final issue).
- Fightin' Army[3], (Charlton, 157 issues from 1956-1984)[4]
- Fightin' Marines (Charlton, 163 issues from 1955-1984)[5]
- Weird War Tales (DC, 124 issues from 1971-1983)[6]
[edit] British War Comics
Black and white anthology stories were popular in Britain in the 1960s. Examples include Commando Comics and Battle Picture Weekly.
[edit] Format
American war comics tended to be of the standard full-color newsprint format, though in the 1980s slick paper began to appear with more vibrant colors. DC and Marvel both also produced "Digest" in reduced paperback form to repackage older stories.
