An Cosantóir

| 17 escapades in World War II that saw Rock and his men face their enemy with gusto. As the '80s progressed however, interest in Sgt Rock and his type of comics waned. In his time, Sgt Rock was a popular character and the imagery was drawn expertly by Joe Kubert, who also later wrote and drew the graphic novel Fax from Sarajevo. Kubert had been known for his fictional portrayal of war and the military for many decades but Fax from Sarajevo was his first step into comic journalism. Ervin Rustemagic was Joe Kubert's European art agent in March 1992 when Serbian forces started to shell Sarajevo. Rustemagic and his family and many others were pinned down throughout the siege of Sarajevo and Rustemagic's only contact with the outside world were faxes to and from his clients abroad when he could. Rustemagic's faxes to Kubert gave a unique perspective of life of a family living through a terrible situation and Kubert produced Fax from Sarajevo to show the life of ordinary people trying to survive in hostile conditions. Many other creators have published non-fiction military tales through comics. Joe Sacco is considered to be one of the greatest non-fiction comic creators alive. When staying in the Israeli-occupied parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for maintained. PS Magazine: The Preventive Maintenance Monthly was started to show proper preventive maintenance methods in a comic book format. However, this was not a new idea. In fact, Eisner had been drafted in 1942 and became head of the Art Department of Army Motors magazine. This publication mixed text and pictures to provide soldiers with the know-how to perform maintenance on their vehicles. In PS Eisner used his skills as a cartoonist to produce a gallery of different fictional soldiers to communicate, using visual humour, how to perform skilled techniques. PS was to be a quick and easy way to show troops how to fulfil their duties. Today, the US Army still publishes PS and although the equipment it deals with is more advanced the publication still retains its comic format. In 2011 some of Eisner's work was collected in a book called PS Magazine: The Best of The Preventative Maintenance Monthly. There is also a free online source of these comics available from Virginia Commonwealth University, that have issues digitally formatted from 1951 to 1971, at the following URL: http://dig.library.vcu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/psm two months in 1991 he learned about the way of life there by interviewing Palestinians (and some Israelis). He drew his interviews and published them in Palestine as a nine-issue comic book series between 1993 and 1995. After that, Sacco travelled to Bosnia and stayed there for five months at the end of the war to do a series of reports like Palestine. Drawn from interviews with soldiers, teachers, refugees and others from every part of the community, his graphic book Safe Area Gorazde highlighted the effect war had on ordinary people. He has also worked as a war comic journalist for The Guardian, having drawn two eight-page comics retelling his time in Iraq embedded with the troops like any other war journalist. Journalism, Sacco's latest book, features some of his unique war reportage in an anthology of his work over the last few years. There are other non-fiction applications where comics and the military have crossed paths in the past. Since 1951 the US Army has seen the benefits of comics as an educational tool for troops. Will Eisner, a comic writer and artist, was hired by the US Army to publish a comic that could provide an educational tool to show the troops how to keep their gear and equipment Perhaps the most famous military related comic strip of all is Beetle Bailey, a daily strip that features in over 1,800 newspapers worldwide. The strip's main character, Bailey, is a hapless layabout stationed in Camp Swampy with a large cast of personnel, who all are inept in one way or another. It was created in 1950 by Mort Walker, who still works on it today. Comics as a medium have always tried to tell tales that entertain, instruct and inform. War comics are full of adventure and also highlight aspects of the military for all to see. As a medium they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Aidan Courtney has worked as a cartoonist for several publications in Ireland over the years, both north and south, covering many different subjects. He has also worked as a writer, editor and publisher of Rírá, an Irish language comic for kids. For more from Aidan visit: www.aidancourtney.blogspot.ie; www.facebook.com/coimici.gael www.military.ie the defence forces magazine

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