Monday, March 11, 2013

WAR FURY "Grim Trio"

Ten-hut!
With North Korea repealing the 60-year armistice...
...and some sort of new conflict looking more and more likely, let's look at how comic books of the 1950s presented the previous "police action" in four-color form during the war!
This story from Comic Media's War Fury #3 (1953) is typical of the period.
The emphasis is on the enemy being Communists, not Asians, as was done (sometimes to extremes) in World War II comics.
(That's not to say racial insults or ethnic stereotypes weren't occasionally used,but they weren't on the level of the extreme caricatures of cartoonish slant-eyed and buck-toothed Japanese from the previous war.)
Plus, most of the writers and artists were vets from the European and Asian theatres of war, with first-hand experience of the horrors of war less than a decade earlier.
In the case of this story, artist Don Heck had been too young to enlist (or be drafted) during WWII, but odds are the unknown writer was a vet.
Until next time...
Dis-missed!

Thursday, February 28, 2013

SPACEBUSTERS "Remember Makano"

Ten-Hut!
In space, no one can hear you die...
From "Remember the Alamo!" to "Remember the Maine!" most wars have one such atrocity which ends up inspiring even greater levels of valor against an evil foe.
The War Against Belzar was no different...
Art for this story from Ziff-Davis' SpaceBusters #2 (1952) was by Murphy Anderson, who had just left the Buck Rogers newspaper strip for new challenges.
The remaining stories are by other artists, but Murphy did a couple of one-page features we'll be presenting later on.
Until next time...
Dis-missed!

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

COMBAT CASEY "Atomic Warfare"

Ten-Hut!
With North Korea again threatening nuclear war...
...let's look at how we viewed a possible atomic war during the first Korean conflict!
WTF???
Admittedly, in 1954, when Combat Casey #19 was published by Atlas (later Marvel), scientific analysis of actual a-bomb explosions was limited, but I find it hard to believe that this was the cutting-edge of nuclear knowledge.
Then again...maybe it was, as detailed by this legendary character...
Why the sudden interest in nuclear war?
Perhaps this new "official" video from North Korea will explain...
See you soon (hopefully)...
Dis-missed!

Monday, December 24, 2012

BATTLEFIELD ACTION "Christmas, 1944: Bastogne"

Ten-Hut...
The "Battle of the Bulge" was, in reality, many battles...
...as the Germans launched a desperate all-out counter-attack from December 16th, 1944 to January 25th, 1945, on rapidly-advancing Allied forces.
This is the story of one of those battles...
There are no writer or artist credits available for this never-reprinted tale from Charlton's Battlefield Action #20 (1958).
Until next time...
Dis-missed!

Friday, December 7, 2012

WAR AT SEA "Pearl Harbor: the Day of Infamy"

It's December 7th, seventy-one years since...
...so let's have a look back at a story illustrated by a veteran who served in the US Navy during WWII!
Illustrated by ex-swabbie Sam Glanzman, this tale from Charlton's War at Sea #26 (1958) exhibits Glanzman's clean storytelling skills and amazing knack for accurate, authentic, renderings of military equipment from ships to aircraft and uniforms.
His best-known military comics work are the autobiographical graphic novels A Sailor's Story and A Sailor's Story Book II: Wind, Dreams & Dragons, about his WWII service on the destroyer U.S.S. Stevens.
Until next time...
Dis-missed!
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