Well, not exactly, but you can bet he drew upon his own war-time experiences when he took over The LOSERS strip in DC COMICS' Our FIGHTING FORCES mag in the '70s. KIRBY nearly lost his legs during the Second World War due to frostbite, and he saw plenty of action as a scout, having to enter enemy-occupied territory to draw reconnaissance maps for Company F of the 11th Infantry Regiment. As has been noted by those who knew him, these tales contain more of a personal dimension than just about any others that Kirby ever produced, which is why they can still strike a chord even with those who are fortunate enough never to have been actual participants in the bloody field of battle.
Here, then, are the covers to the dozen issues of Our Fighting Forces that Jack wrote and drew for DC in 1974/'75.
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I have never been a fan of war stories.
ReplyDeleteI was put off by the war content of some of the early British comics,although I am sure I intentionally bought WARLORD comic.It may have been that initial free gift or nothing else available to me.
One comic which I really liked was THE LOSERS.
Again it was all down to Jack Kirby for me.
The one I read and re-read the most is in your cover gallery above.
BUSHIDO!
I had a couple of copies,not for collecting but for reading or swaps.
I never swapped these,I read them till they fell apart.
Comics were my education and while all the other kids were Bruce Lee or Kung Fu daft,I was reading about Bushido!
Comics definitely stretched my little brain.
I was never much into war stories myself, Baab, but, like you, I bought Warlord - at least for a while. I always found number one of a new comic extremely difficult to resist. As for The Losers. I didn't see it at the time, but now I've got a few issues, plus the DC Omnibus edition.
ReplyDeleteI was also not a big fan of War comic stories but I did pick up a lot of DCs output as the art was so good. "Our Fighting Forces (featuring Losers) was my favourite but more so when John Severin was on art chores some really stunning work , ( DC also had great back up/reprints by Toth, Kubert, Heath etc) - saying that I did really like Kirbys version and it was one of his better 70s DC comics (imho) I seem to recall a short lived 70s DC war comic called "Blitzkrieg" that looked at the war from the Germans viewpoint not sure if Kirby was involved as only picked up the first issue (Kubert I think)
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall reading about that comic (or perhaps seeing an in-house ad for it), McScotty, but I don't think I've ever seen an actual issue. If you like The Losers, another book you should get is the Omnibus edition I referred to in my previous response.
ReplyDeleteI am actually a fan of war comics, the British picture book format scene had some excellent content (some not so excellent too) that was a few steps ahead of the film industry. The US ones were probably even better, although Sgt. Fury and I didn't connect, the ones I read seemed confused about the genre, a sin Marvel repeated -big time- with that notorious incident in The Nam. Which while it had been an excellent work, that started in a mag format anthology I believe, it'd declined quite sharply by the time The Punisher cropped up.
ReplyDeleteThe Losers was quite an elusive comic, I'd never heard of it while was a kid, it hadn't made it to any of my outlets. It wasn't till later that I picked up on it.
I don't think I read The Nam, DSE, although I noticed that it was drawn by Severin and was almost tempted to pick it up for that fact alone. Like you, I didn't notice The Losers at the time (it was probably there, but just never registered), so it wasn't until many years after the fact that I read any of them.
ReplyDeleteAFAIK, Kirby was not involved with Blitzkrieg. It ran for five issues in 1976. Scripts by Robert Kanigher and covers by Joe Kubert. IIRC, interior art was by Ric Estrada.
ReplyDeleteThe 'Nam was a very good comic for much of its run, but it never caught on. And the gimmicks they tried near the end (the Punisher, and also an issue that was a sort of dream sequence with the super heroes) just did not work.
It was a standard format color comic book. Later, there was a B&W magazine that reprinted the comic two issues at a time.
I saw The 'Nam on the spinner-racks, TC, and flicked through a couple to admire the Severin art, but subject-wise, it didn't really appeal to me.
ReplyDelete