Last week, we were talking about the forgotten heroes of World War II comics, Hillman’s Airfighters, and their star attraction, Airboy, a kid pilot with an amazing robot plane named Birdie. Let us continue: In time, Airboy becomes an authorized if unofficial member of the Air Force, often going out on missions at the behest […]
First: a disclaimer: We’ll be discussing comics published during a particularly incendiary period in our nation’s history. It’s no secret that the portrayal of minorities in all forms of American media in the 1940s was often stereotypical and demeaning, and the fervor of wartime patriotism during World War II ratcheted the rhetoric up even further. […]
Even as the San Diego Comic-Con becomes more and more of a pop-culture/movie-and -TV/ glitzy Hollywood event with each passing year, I always make sure to attend a few of the strictly comics-focused panels, just to keep alive that spirit of what I originally fell in love with about Comic-Con. A few years back, one […]
Marvel published the 155th issue of GI Joe: A Real American Hero in December of 1994. Almost two decades later, IDW Publishing, which had long-since established its own Joe continuity separate from Marvel’s tales, invited original series writer Larry Hama to pick up where he left off in July 2010 with the release of GI […]
It’s no surprise that comics have a long history with war. Many of the architects of comics served in the military during World War II. Just as much as the hard-boiled worlds of the pulps helped shaped early comic books, war served just as much of an inspiration. Jack Kirby and Joe Simon created Captain […]
Americans experienced 1344 days of World War II, about three and a half years. Many Americans were defined by those years for the rest of their lives. Some of them even until today. It defined America. Every candidate for office was questioned about their war record – Kennedy was accused of staying on crutches for […]
More than any other medium, comics is a home for passion projects. As often as a writer or artist create their own story, character, or title, a creator who has been a fan of a certain hero or franchise since they were young comes to the world of comics to play with those old toys… […]
Way, way back in the day, in these pages, we discussed Hillman Periodicals’ stable of slightly jingoistic characters published during World War II, military aviation heroes like Airboy, SkyWolf, the Flying Fool, the Iron Ace, Black Angel and the Heap. But what we didn’t discuss is how the character matured once the war was […]
If soldiers and thieves have one thing in common, it is the allure of one last job. For fifty years, Col. Nick Fury has been both a soldier and a thief as the leader of the Howling Commandos and as THE Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. This life has taught Fury that there is always more work […]
In 2006, longtime Sgt. Rock vet and co-creator Joe Kubert returned to his iconic character for a six-issue miniseries, which he wrote and drew. Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy takes us back to 1943 during the days of World War II, as the Nazis, having occupied Lithuania, have set their sights on Russia. It’s up to […]
One of my absolute favorite war comics – actually, one of my absolute favorite comics, full stop – is about a group of lions that escaped from a zoo. Pride of Baghdad, written by Brian K. Vaughan, is a genius account of a real life events that went down during America’s 2003 invasion and bombing […]
A new month brings a new theme and a new banner from our kickass Artist-in-Residence Elena Casagrande! This month Elena brings together Sgt. Rock, Blackhawk and Sgt. Fury as we look at War Comics!
