An Cosantóir

16 | I by Aidan Courtney All images are copyrighted by their respective owners n Ireland, many children grew up reading comics from Britain and the United States that had the military as their subject matter. Comics as a medium are a good way to get children reading and develop literacy, which has been proven by the generations on this island whose interest in reading began with weekly comics like the Beano, Dandy, Buster, and others. For many the attraction came via wartime adventure comics. In Britain and the USA there was a huge push for military themed comics after World War II. In the United Kingdom, DC Thomson published many wartime adventure comics, including Victor, Warlord and Commando comics. IPC Magazines many war adventure strips. Again, nostalgia has kept many of the strips alive in recent years with strips in new book formats. Charley's War, one of the most popular of these, has been reprinted and published in lavish hardbacks by Titan Books. Written by Pat Mills and drawn by Joe Colquhoun, the comics tell the tale of Charley Bourne who at the age of 16 (after lying about his age) joins the British Army to fight in the trenches of World War I. He soon finds himself in the Battle of the Somme. It is a comic that explores the harshness of life in the trenches. It also shows Charley's experiences as a soldier in what was a harrowing time for all. While the British published and distributed comics on a or Fleetway published War Picture Library and Battle Picture Weekly as well as many other comic books that featured at least one military tale as part of their comic. Many of these British-published, weekly comics were available in Irish newsagents. Although most of these publications ceased to exist, there has been a revival of late in military related comics. Commando is still published today, with four books a fortnight on a variety of military themes as well as several historical military campaigns. It has a format of 68 pages with about 135 panels per story and is in black and white. It might seem a bit odd for a comic that was first published in 1961 to be still going today with the same no-colour format but it shows no sign of stopping. These are now available digitally on iPhones and iPads on a subscription basis, so they have adapted with the times. The tales have expanded from World War II to include tales from other periods of conflict in history. Nostalgia has also meant that collected editions of the comics have been assembled. Many tales have also been reprinted in book anthologies. Battle Picture Weekly, or Battle, as it became known before it ceased publication in 1988, was a very popular comic featuring weekly basis throughout the UK and Ireland, in the United States comic publishers distributed their comics on a monthly, or sometimes bimonthly, basis. Many publishers published some form of military comics on a regular basis until the late 1980s. The major comic publishers of military based comics in the United States were Chartlon, DC Comics, Marvel and EC Comics. Each of them published anthology based comics that featured World War II settings. Some featured tales from the Korean and the Vietnam wars. The 'Nam, a series of Marvel comics published from 1986 to 1993 was based on the exploits of soldiers in the Vietnam War. Like Charley's War, it put its fictional characters in historical events but it was also significant in that it was created by former Vietnam veterans: Larry Hama, the editor, and Doug Murray, the writer. Sgt Rock featured in a monthly publication called Our Army at War, which was published by DC Comics. Our Army at War started in 1952 when there was a surge in war adventure comics but its title was subsequently changed to Sgt Rock and was usually drawn by the brilliant Joe Kubert. Sgt Rock led Easy Company (his fictional company of men) through many An Cosantóir September 2013 www.dfmagazine.ie

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