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The unpublished material for the above-listed books was sold to Charlton Comics...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!

FOXHOLE "Walkie Talkie"

Ten-Hut!

With North Korea rattling their rusted sabers yet again...

...let's look at a story created during the first Korean War by the legendary Simon & Kirby studio when they were publishing their own titles!

Art for this tale from FoxHole #2 (1954) was by WWII vet Bill Draut (who served in the Marines).
While the writer is unknown, it's likely that either Joe Simon or Jack Kirby (or both as a team) penned it.

FoxHole was a comic produced by writers and artists who had served in the military.

The creators usually put their names and ranks on the splash panels of the stories.

(The book's subhead read "This is WAR as seen by the Guys Who Do the Fighting!")

Jack Kirby, as the book's co-publisher, primary plotter, and layout artist didn't sign his name on the stories even though he served in the Army as a scout, sneaking behind enemy lines and creating sketches and maps of enemy-held areas.

He also did the cover at left.

Unlike most Korean War-era comics, this was not a gung-ho, kick-ass title, but one that took a hard-edged look at the heavy cost of war to the participants.

Until next time...

Dis-missed!

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...for all your uniform and equipment needs!