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The Unknown Anti-War Comics!
An action-oriented medium, comics have long used wars--real and fictional--as narrative fodder, often with a strong message attached. Buried in rare comics published during the Cold War were powerful war, fantasy, and sci-fi stories that strongly condemned war and the bomb, boldly calling for peace.
While a few comics of the time portrayed the horrors of war, the more blatant anti-war stories were largely unappreciated or so cloaked in metaphor that they went unnoticed by contemporary audiences. Today, we can more fully appreciate the efforts of the fine writers and cartoonists who were crying out for peace in their--and our--time. Journey back with us now, and discover the secret, surprising history of anti-war comics with this marvelously curated collection.
While a few comics of the time portrayed the horrors of war, the more blatant anti-war stories were largely unappreciated or so cloaked in metaphor that they went unnoticed by contemporary audiences. Today, we can more fully appreciate the efforts of the fine writers and cartoonists who were crying out for peace in their--and our--time. Journey back with us now, and discover the secret, surprising history of anti-war comics with this marvelously curated collection.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published August 21, 2018
About the author
Steve Ditko
1,272 books142 followersStephen J. "Steve" Ditko was an American comic book artist and writer best known as the co-creator of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
He was inducted into the comics industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990, and into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994.
He was inducted into the comics industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990, and into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 12, 2020
‘Come, sit by the fire father … tell me the story father … tell me again how the world ended’. [says a girl with no eyes, holding a wide eyed doll, to a man clenching one hand and covering his face with another, in a cave]. This disturbing sequence playing out over three jagged panels in a single frame starts ‘Children of Doom’ - a near-lost classic reprinted in editor Craig Yeo’s collection ‘The Unknown Anti-War Comics!’
The exclamation point at the end of the title is a tribute to the style of cheap pulpy comics of the 1950’s and 1960’s. These era of comic history has the reputation of being violent and lurid - and repressed. Horror comics such as those of the EC imprint had attracted the attention of authorities through (very dubious) studies such as Fredric Wertham's claims in ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ that comics caused juvenile delinquency. The introduction of the ‘Comics Code’ by the industry was supposed to clean up comics by ensuring that ‘Scenes of excessive violence shall be prohibited’. Craig Yeo points out, however that war comics were usually treated as an exception for this kind of censorship. This was despite those comics having long been home to some of the most violent and racist images and stories in print. In his introduction to ‘The Unknown …’ Yeo describes how during the Second World War comic artists and writers would often submit politically anti-Nazi stories for publication, only to have them returned with the stipulation that they needed to do more to inflame hatred against Germans as a people. Representations of the Japanese were also racialised as a matter of policy to promote what seemed at times to be a war of extermination in the Pacific.
The lighter censorious touch experienced by war comics, provided more opportunities to publish works with explicitly anti-war and pacifistic content. These were by no means produced at the top end of the market, and the work Yeo has reproduced is from defunct companies. Short-lived runs with titles such as ‘Never Again’, published by Charlton Comics from mid-1950s and 1960s are collected in ‘The Unknown …’. Despite this low end reputation, these comics featured artists that would become well-known: Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, Dick Giordano and Steve Ditko (of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange), had early works published by Charlton that are reprinted in ‘The Unknown …’.
There are stories that reference the First and Second World Wars - which were within living memory of the people creating these comics. There is also a story set during the battle of Agincourt, and an unusually sympathetic (if patronising) to Native Americans tale about the end of the ‘Indian Wars’. However most of these stories are science fiction - a genre which safely removes you from being hindered by Earth politics. Stories such as ‘No Common Ground’ are about aliens, in this case ‘people of peace’ from a dying planet seeking refuge. Earth leaders respond by saying, ‘we will build a wall… an impenetrable wallop steel-like substance’ to contain the aliens and threaten to ‘bring our armed forces in play’.
In keeping with the cheapness of the medium, most of the stories in ‘The Unknown …’ are fairly short - with clunky dialogue and low quality drawing despite the presence of future comics greats. They often have engaging set-ups of worlds and stories, but extremely quick endings (many might have been excellent longer form narratives). A favourite resolution device is to suddenly discover that the children of two hostile sides have been playing together, thus teaching the adults a lesson about peace. There are also stories that could be 'Twilight Zone' episodes of spacemen meeting and fighting mirror images of themselves on other planets. There are also tales of atomic wars that destroy all sides with victory to no-one. That is the subject matter of the longest story in this collection: ‘Children of Doom’, written by Denny O’Neil (who would onto write Green Lantern) with art by Pat Boyette, and published by Charlton Premiere. ‘Doom’ has it all: nuclear war, Doomsday Devices, space travel, time travel, and ‘mutant’ superpowers. However while these stories often argue against war by showing the horrific consequences, they also show people choosing not to go to war. This is the more challenging decision to portray - since it runs counter to the dramatic narratives of what we expect from ‘war comics’, and from humanity itself.
The exclamation point at the end of the title is a tribute to the style of cheap pulpy comics of the 1950’s and 1960’s. These era of comic history has the reputation of being violent and lurid - and repressed. Horror comics such as those of the EC imprint had attracted the attention of authorities through (very dubious) studies such as Fredric Wertham's claims in ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ that comics caused juvenile delinquency. The introduction of the ‘Comics Code’ by the industry was supposed to clean up comics by ensuring that ‘Scenes of excessive violence shall be prohibited’. Craig Yeo points out, however that war comics were usually treated as an exception for this kind of censorship. This was despite those comics having long been home to some of the most violent and racist images and stories in print. In his introduction to ‘The Unknown …’ Yeo describes how during the Second World War comic artists and writers would often submit politically anti-Nazi stories for publication, only to have them returned with the stipulation that they needed to do more to inflame hatred against Germans as a people. Representations of the Japanese were also racialised as a matter of policy to promote what seemed at times to be a war of extermination in the Pacific.
The lighter censorious touch experienced by war comics, provided more opportunities to publish works with explicitly anti-war and pacifistic content. These were by no means produced at the top end of the market, and the work Yeo has reproduced is from defunct companies. Short-lived runs with titles such as ‘Never Again’, published by Charlton Comics from mid-1950s and 1960s are collected in ‘The Unknown …’. Despite this low end reputation, these comics featured artists that would become well-known: Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, Dick Giordano and Steve Ditko (of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange), had early works published by Charlton that are reprinted in ‘The Unknown …’.
There are stories that reference the First and Second World Wars - which were within living memory of the people creating these comics. There is also a story set during the battle of Agincourt, and an unusually sympathetic (if patronising) to Native Americans tale about the end of the ‘Indian Wars’. However most of these stories are science fiction - a genre which safely removes you from being hindered by Earth politics. Stories such as ‘No Common Ground’ are about aliens, in this case ‘people of peace’ from a dying planet seeking refuge. Earth leaders respond by saying, ‘we will build a wall… an impenetrable wallop steel-like substance’ to contain the aliens and threaten to ‘bring our armed forces in play’.
In keeping with the cheapness of the medium, most of the stories in ‘The Unknown …’ are fairly short - with clunky dialogue and low quality drawing despite the presence of future comics greats. They often have engaging set-ups of worlds and stories, but extremely quick endings (many might have been excellent longer form narratives). A favourite resolution device is to suddenly discover that the children of two hostile sides have been playing together, thus teaching the adults a lesson about peace. There are also stories that could be 'Twilight Zone' episodes of spacemen meeting and fighting mirror images of themselves on other planets. There are also tales of atomic wars that destroy all sides with victory to no-one. That is the subject matter of the longest story in this collection: ‘Children of Doom’, written by Denny O’Neil (who would onto write Green Lantern) with art by Pat Boyette, and published by Charlton Premiere. ‘Doom’ has it all: nuclear war, Doomsday Devices, space travel, time travel, and ‘mutant’ superpowers. However while these stories often argue against war by showing the horrific consequences, they also show people choosing not to go to war. This is the more challenging decision to portray - since it runs counter to the dramatic narratives of what we expect from ‘war comics’, and from humanity itself.
April 14, 2021
What an oddball collection of Silver Age genre comics. There's a pile of well done (anti-)war comics frontloaded into the book, followed by nearly 170 pages of science fiction short stories, ranging from 3 to 8 pages, the last third of which are all stories with Steve Ditko art. Finally, there's a 20ish page longer post-apocalyptic tale with great art by Pat Boyette (and legitimately odd coloring). As the names of those artists might suggest, the vast majority of this work is public domain material originally published by Charlton Comics, a second rate company that eked out an existence into the 80s primarily because they owned their own printing presses and printed comics when they would otherwise have had costly downtime. The intention of the stories is pretty much uniformly antiwar, which is good, because otherwise this collection would make almost no sense whatsoever, but it's never incompetent and the Ditko section and my penchant for mid-century modern space art got me to push it up to four stars instead of its probably deserved three.
August 17, 2020
Almost all are written by Joe Gill. I found them dull and predictable. "Man is the true enemy of man!" etc.
Most of the art is kinda flat and forgettable, mostly by Bill Manlo. Ditko draws a few at the end, meh.
The last story is by Denny O'Neil, r.i.p., and is definitely the highlight.
Most of the art is kinda flat and forgettable, mostly by Bill Manlo. Ditko draws a few at the end, meh.
The last story is by Denny O'Neil, r.i.p., and is definitely the highlight.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews