Celebrate the 80th Anniversary of D-Day...by Reading Comics/Graphic Novels!

TEN-HUT!!!

It's the 80th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies, led by America, invaded Fortress Europa...

...and we at War: Past Present and Future , along with our fellow RetroBlogs, Hero Histories and Atomic Kommie Comics, have presented numerous graphic tales of that epic day, beginning with Marvel's Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos hitting the beach on D-Day!

Yes, it was reprinted in a Marvel Masterworks over a decade ago, but those are extremely-expensive and didn't sell very well, so most of you have never seen this tale from over a half century ago!

We gave equal time to Fury's DC counterpart, Sgt. Rock, presenting his never-reprinted D-Day adventure...which was also the final story illustrated by his co-creator Joe Kubert!

It was really crowded at Normandy on June 6th, 1944 since Blackhawk and his team were also there, so it's only fair we present their never-reprinted D-Day adventure...which also doubles as their previously-unrevealed origin...at Hero Histories!

The EC Comics crew, best known for sci-fi and horror, also did a story about D-Day...by three ex-military personnel as seen HERE!

And one of their crew, who served in the Merchant Marine before becoming a paratrooper, did this tale  about our paratroopers on D-Day...

Our "parent" RetroBlog, AtomicKommie Comics, joined in with both a brief three-pager...

...and a multi-part retelling courtesy of Gilberton, the publisher behind Classics Illustrated and World Around Us!

Enjoy, and if you have a friend or family member who's a D-Day veteran, tell him "Thank You" for us!

Dis-missed!

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Essential Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos

by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers and others

And

Showcase Presents Sgt Rock

by Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert and others

On Memorial Day, Read FOXHOLE...the Comic Written and Drawn by Veterans!

 Created by World War II veterans Jack Kirby (Army) and Joe Simon (Coast Guard)...

...this was a project near and dear to their hearts.

When, after over a decade of numerous acclaimed projects at DC, Timely (later Marvel), and Crestwood like Captain America, The Sandman, Black Magic, and the entire romance comics genre with Young Romance and Young Love, they founded their own company in 1954, Mainline, to do what they wanted, unrestrained by others' editorial control.

One of those books was Foxhole, written and drawn by veterans, showing the non-glamorous, but still heroic, side of war!
(They emphasized the "veteran" aspect by listing contributors' military branch and rank in their credits!)

It wasn't a gung ho "kill the Nazis/Japs/Reds" title like most of the war comics of the 1950s were...

...but a slice-of-life series showing how, despite conditions that could break a man, soldiers, sailors, and Marines (the Air Force was part of the Army during World War II) endured and kept going!

Even this issue's cover, showing a Marine with a haunted look on his face expressed the series' viewpoint.
Sadly, Mainline was caught up in the Seduction of the Innocent scandal that almost destroyed the comic book business.
No, none of the Mainline titles were involved in the whole mishigas, but, because they were a new company, newsstand distributors (there were no comics shops back then) were trying to limit the damage to their business by dropping publishers who weren't big-volume sellers!
With only four books (Foxhole, In Love, Bulls-Eye (a masked Western hero), and Police Trap, Mainline was considered "marginal".
Joe Simon and Jack Kirby closed Mainline and returned to packaging for other publishers for a couple of years before going their separate ways.
The unpublished material for the above-listed books was sold to Charlton Comics...

...where, ironically, it was edited to fit the newly-created Comics Code Authority's standards!

Foxhole continued for another issue after the Simon-Kirby material ran out, becoming just another typical war comic.

Reprinting of the material has been sporadic, and limited.

IW Comics, which bought printing plates abandoned by defunct comics publishers at their printers grabbed several issues of the Mainline Foxhole's interior plates in the early 1960s.

But, since they didn't have the cover plates (which were printed at another facility which handled higher-quality slick paper rather than cheap interior newsprint), they commissioned new covers by Jack Abel.

IW also used the Foxhole title to reprint war comics stories by other publishers.
So, let's end the history lesson and show you where to go to read these stories unseen in any form since 1964...over half a century ago!

Click HERE!

Love is a Battlefield! WARTIME ROMANCES "Road to Disgrace"

TEN-HUT!!!

Before 1973, serving in the military, whether voluntary or conscripted (the "draft")...

...used to be a part of almost every American man's life.

So, it seemed logical that there would be romance comics based around something that affected almost all young (18-25), eligible males, and the women who loved them!

The illustrator of this story from St John's WarTime Romances #4 (1952) is legendary good-girl artist Matt Baker, but the writer is unknown.

Until Next Time...

DIS-MISSED!!!!

Christmas Combat Comics NEW HEROIC COMICS "Korean Christmas!!"

Ten-Hut!

With a second Korean War potentially-ever more inevitable...

...this never-reprinted tale from Eastern's New Heroic Comics #82 (1953) seems as relevant as ever!

While this Jack Berrill-ilustrated piece is supposedly a "True Life Story", there's no mention of the battle at a record of the unit's actions!

This is not to diminish the 21st's heroic actions during the Korean War!

In fact, the 21st was the first American ground unit to see action during the conflict!

Until Next Time...

Dis-Missed!

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War: Past, Present and Future!

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Corpse on the Imjin

and Other Stories by Harvey Kurtzman

Halloween Horror HAUNT OF HORROR "Nightmare Patrol"

Ten-Hut!
 Here's a fascinating Vietnam War-set tale...

...created in 1974, just after American participation in the drawn-out conflict ended!

This never-reprinted tale from Marvel's Haunt of Horror V2N1 (1974) was part of a wave of horror tales prompted by the loosening up of the Comics Code to allow "traditional" monsters (who had been banned since the mid-1950s) back into comics!

DC was having some success with their new Weird War Tales book as well as the long-running Our Army at War/Sgt Rock and several others, but Marvel's war titles had been reduced to just Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos...and that had just gone reprint!

So a new war-oriented title was out of the question, and the story found a home in the premiere issue of the second version of Haunt of Horror (the first was a short-lived digest featuring novelettes and short stories).

Until Next Time...

Dis-smissed!

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Showcase Presents
Weird War Tales
Volume 1