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!)
(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The unpublished material for the above-listed books was sold to Charlton Comics...
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.
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.
Reprinting of the material has been sporadic, and limited.
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!
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!
