"The Trench!" - a Review from Blazing Combat 4

Blazing Combat #4 (July 1966)
"The Trench!"
Archie Goodwin-John Severin

Back in September I featured a retrospective of Marie Severin's work, capped by a superior piece of King Kull art she drew in collaboration with her older brother John. This day you are treated to a beautifully-rendered tale from the Blazing Combat anthology, with John Severin flying solo on the art chores. I've said it before and I'll say it again - if you can get your mitts on the Fantagraphic Books hardcover collection of the four issues of Blazing Combat, do it! Cover to cover, it might be the finest book I own in terms of the quality of the interior art.

As was typical of Archie Goodwin's Blazing Combat stories, he wove tales of morality and of the horrors of war. This one - one of the shortest at only six pages - is well done and power-packed. Let's check out a brief overview:

100-Word Review:

World War I is winding down in spring of 1918 - still several months of bloody combat remain. In an Allied trench on the Western Front, men contemplate their lot - muddy, wet, the smell of death all around. The trench is hopeless, a virtual prison where death seems the only escape. Comrades leap to the top of the wall in a suicide bid; freedom comes only in covert missions under cover of night. One mission found a grizzled veteran crossing No Man’s Land with two of his commanding officers. The mission turned bad, and our soldier found himself sprinting for his life, to the safety of his… trench.

The Good: I love this book, and I love this story - and it's fitting given that today is Veterans Day (formerly known in the States as Armistice Day). Thirteen years before the Hallmark Hall of Fame presented the Richard Thomas/Ernest Borgnine version of All Quiet on the Western Front, Archie Goodwin and John Severin spun a vignette that could easily have been a included in that television film. Here is a clip from the opening scenes, which I feel dovetails nicely with today's review:

Even in Goodwin's opening statement, we're dropped into the horrors that were the seemingly unending life of the trench soldier. I could get a feel for the perpetual dampness, and just a few panels in Severin showed us a panel with "corpse rats", creatures so foul they lived among the soldiers as vultures, waiting for an opportunity to scavenge. The ceaseless threat to life, and the omnipresence of death, were on display as our protagonist's friend committed suicide simply by scaling the trench wall and making himself visible to enemy sharpshooters. While all these things should perhaps dwell in my "The Bad" section of this review, how well done these events are portrayed puts them squarely in the kudos portion of my writing.

John Severin offers a real depth to his characters. His use of shadows and varying lightsource angles offers an almost 3-dimensional feel, particularly on facial closeups. The trench is a character itself, and Severin uses it to create fear and death, but in the concluding panels warmth and safety. In Severin's telling, we experience fear, hopelessness, separation, loss, and after all that, a love for the familiar... and comfort from the very things only moments before had stimulated so many negative emotions.

The Bad: So much loss of life. In the introduction to the Blazing Combat collected edition, editor J. Michael Catron explains that several entities conspired to get the magazine canceled back in the mid-1960s - the United States military, the American Legion, and magazine wholesalers. As the Vietnam war escalated, the magazine was forced to cease publication. That was bad news, as the entire contents of the magazine served not necessarily as negative propaganda, but of the human realities of war. For that, Archie Goodwin and James Warren should be applauded, and it's a real shame there wasn't more.

The Ugly: War is Hell. And John Severin showed us. Nuff said.

"Thermopylae!" - a Review from Blazing Combat 4

Blazing Combat #4 (July 1966)
"Thermopylae!"
Archie Goodwin-Reed Crandall

Have you read Frank Miller's 300? Seen the film of the same name? Strike me down and call me stupid, but I've not encountered either. Oh, I obviously know what they are - just never got round to it. So I was a little surprised as I was reading through the Blazing Combat hardcover collection to see today's story. It started off as a feature that was apparently going to be about a couple of British soldiers, but then a page turn and WOW! Let's check it out...

100-Word Review:

Two British soldiers await their next orders, having become part of an attachment hoping to delay the Wehrmacht’s capture of Athens in 1941. One of the men decides to give his comrade a history lesson, a lesson of that time in history when 300 Spartans held off the far-superior invading forces of Xerxes the Great of Persia. The battle was fought hard, and Xerxes was frustrated. In the end, the Persian king was victorious, but not before those 300 Spartans became the stuff of legend. But what of the resistance to Hitler’s Wehrmacht? How would they fare?

The Good: Score one for History, because it obviously gave the creators an outstanding story to adapt. That being said, Archie Goodwin and Reed Crandall knock it out of the park. I've said it here in the past, but I feel like I've missed a major boat in my comics-reading career that I haven't encountered Reed Crandall's work until recently. That man is a talent among talents! To turn this story from page 1 to page 2 is to almost step back in time a few thousand years. Crandall's depictions of the various parties in allegiance to Xerxes is just stellar. And Goodwin's script is just as good as anything else he wrote in Blazing Combat. I have to give Goodwin a lot of credit, as he worked with over a dozen artists during the 4-issue run of this magazine, and he meshed with each of them. His work is to be commended as much as any of the artists.

As to the actual story, I enjoyed the framing sequences. Obviously we know how the story turned out for the Greeks and the Persians, and we know how it went with the Germans and their victory over the Allies. The two period stories dovetail nicely.

The Bad: Nothing at all to say here today.

The Ugly: Likewise, not a single aspect of this story to dislike. It's all positive feedback on this Monday!

"Aftermath!" - a Review from Blazing Combat 1

Blazing Combat #1 (October 1965)
"Aftermath!"
Archie Goodwin-Angelo Torres

I don't often grab a book right from the shelf and buy it. While I can be an impulsive shopper, I tend to be patient with books. Call me a slave to online discounts, but I get butt-pains in the wallet area when I think of paying full price for books. I know, I know - when the brick-n-mortar stores are dead and gone, I'll have that blood on my hands. I know. But hey - not only did I snag the Fantagraphics Books totally-awesome hardcover collection Blazing Combat while I was in Washington, DC last month, I also purchased George Takei's autobiography They Called Us Enemy (I have a review of this scheduled later in the fall) at cover price. Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf.

Blazing Combat lasted a mere four issues back in 1965-66. In the introduction to the hardcover collection, editor Michael Catron tells that the series was scuttled by the United States military, comics wholesalers, and the American Legion. As Archie Goodwin's tales took a sympathetic bent toward soldiers as people - as moral agents, and definitely toward "war is hell", some of the powers-that-be felt that it was unpatriotic. At a time when US involvement in the Vietnam War was escalating, the book was certainly politically charged. And apparently too hot to handle. But what Warren wrought in those four issues is a feast for the eyes, with talent like Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, Gene Colan, John Severin, Russ Heath, Redd Crandall, Alex Toth, and many others providing the art. The collected edition is absolutely beautiful - one of the best looking reprints of black-and-white comics that I own. Catron writes that Fantagraphics used the original printer's films "for the finest quality possible". He ain't lyin'.

Let's do our thing. Today I've chosen the second story in the book, a troubling examination of themes from America's Civil War.

100-Word Review:

Set in 1863, we’re dropped into a scene of standoff. The Union forces have scattered the Confederates, save one Rebel who has a bead on two Union men. Getting off a clean shot, the Rebel drops one of the men in blue. Forced to find cover, his partner can’t move. But as the shot man cries out and it’s obvious that his death will not be immediate, the Rebel calls to his enemy to assist his friend. The Rebel goes so far as to call a truce and assist in helping his victim. What happens when enemies come face-to-face? 

The Good: Angelo Torres's art is superb, as your own eyeballs can attest. I did not mention Torres above when I rattled off the hall-of-fame caliber participants in this series. But I'm telling you, the man can hold his own against any and all comers. Wow. If I'm not mistaken (and at this writing I am not terribly far into the book), in each story the artist worked alone. So you're getting the whole Angelo Torres enchilada. And it's beautiful.

The Civil War is often described as brother against brother, and the common threads that bind these enemies together - duty, honor, self-preservation - may as well make them brothers. When the survivors meet in their mythical no-man's land, they share jerky and tobacco and a common hatred for the wild hogs that they know will eat the dead warrior. But as they sit down, perhaps to further explore their similarities, one sentence blows it all up. Perceptions, history, political affiliation, and the banners we wave all congeal to immediately end the ceasefire. The end is swift, painful, and Archie Goodwin leaves us with the question of whether or not it was inevitable. I paused upon completion and wondered if we aren't traveling along that same path in our times. It's scary... perhaps we are.

The black-and-white mags are heavily populated with short stories, and Blazing Combat has only that - six to eight page tales. The creators largely knock it out of the park despite the confined space. Lots of plot as well as character reveal in these six pages.

 

The Bad: Archie Goodwin did that thing for which Chris Claremont has been maligned, and that's attempting to write characters with accents. Works well (generally) in film, not so much in literature. In film, we can largely tell what the character is saying despite changes in tone or inflection; on the printed page, however, it can get a little wonky. Admittedly, on my reread for this review I did not find it as much a distraction on my first tour. Goodwin does it again in the very next story, which was set in the late 1930s.

The thought of the hogs feasting on dead soldiers and/or civilians is a stomach-turner.

The Ugly: War sucks. People suck. Hatred sucks. Those seem constants in life that I'd love to see broken during my lifetime. I hold on to optimism, that some day we'll figure it out. Each semester in the introduction to my Social Injustice class we analyze the lyrics to Sly & the Family Stone's Everyday People. It remains pertinent learning.

Sometimes I'm right and I can be wrong
My own beliefs are in my song
The butcher, the banker, the drummer and then
Makes no difference what group I'm in

I am everyday people, yeah yeah

There is a blue one who can't accept the green one
For living with a fat one trying to be a skinny one
And different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo

Oh sha sha we got to live together

I am no better and neither are you
We are the same whatever we do
You love me you hate me you know me and then
You can't figure out the bag I'm in

I am everyday people, yeah yeah

There is a long hair that doesn't like the short hair
For bein' such a rich one that will not help the poor one
And different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo

Oh sha sha we got to live together

There is a yellow one that won't accept the black one
That won't accept the red one that won't accept the white one
And different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo

I am everyday people

Experiment in Fear - a Review from Eerie 9

We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust
Neal Adams, Rafael Medoff, Craig Yoe
Yoe Books, (c) April 2018

Eerie 9 (May 1967)
"Experiment in Fear"
Archie Goodwin-Gene Colan

Near the beginning of the year, our friend Simon gave us a tour of the 9th issue of Eerie. Today, I want to go a bit more in-depth on one of the stories contained therein.

As you can see from the cover images at top, I have access to this story in the fantastic book We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust. That tome reprints several Holocaust-themed tales, from the Golden Age through the Bronze Age and across publishers. I read it as soon as I received it, back in the spring of 2018 when it was hot off the presses. I'd highly recommend it obviously for its significance, but also for the breadth of content.

I've not yet amassed any copies or compilations of Eerie, Creepy, et al. But I'm very interested. Occasionally the Archives of those magazines come along for cheap, so my eyes are peeled. Not knowing if today's featured story is formulaic, I'm going to just plunge in with my general review format of a synopsis, followed by a Good/Bad/Ugly critique. Step right this way for your...

100-Word Review:

Set in an unnamed concentration camp in 1943 Germany, Dr. Strasser shows Colonel Kolb the results of his experiments with fear. Proud of his work, Strasser has, through isolation and the ongoing and ever-increasing threat of death by starvation, asphyxiation, etc., been able to "prove" that non-Nordic "races" are prone to fear, justifying the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. But... what if the tables were turned, and an Aryan was subjected to the mental and physical torture of Strasser's laboratory? Surely the results would not be the same. Or would they?

The Good: Before I delve into this story, I must again heap praise on We Spoke Out itself. Not only is it an outstanding collection of a comics genre as mentioned previously, but it is enhanced by historically-accurate framing ahead of each story. The book, already brimming with a message, gains weight through the link to the actual history. I have a colleague through my contract work for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum who is fond of saying, "Let the history stand on its own." Here, we're provided that opportunity, followed by artistic interpretation of specific historical trends, events, or personalities. The gestalt is fascinating, and important.

As to the story, where to begin? As I generally land on the art side of comics first, I'll begin with Gene Colan. So many of us are familiar with his color work from Tomb of Dracula to Daredevil to Captain America to Batman. And for those fans who have had the privilege to see Colan's art in black and white through Marvel's Essentials line or the recently-released Artist Edition of Colan's ToD work, we know that Colan was almost made for the B&W page. It's on full display in this story. Gene Colan has always been revered for his darks, his shadows. Here? It's 100% a feast for the eyes. Colan's attention to details on the German uniforms, the setting, the barrenness of the prison area... all aspects create the mood of fear, loathing, apprehension, and power the story demands and emits. In only eight pages, "Experiment in Fear" is a tour de force.

Archie Goodwin's story shines as well. Of course the tale has a twist ending, akin to a Twilight Zone episode. Goodwin shepherds us through the plot with dialogue in which we can believe, and he and Colan pace the story so that it is at once fast moving, yet arduous in its uncertainty as we are spectators to the torture of humans by a so-called Master Race. We cheer for the Jewish prisoner who finds a way to switch places with his tormentor, but we understand that his victory is temporary, and largely forgotten by those who know. The lack of rules, of winners and losers, of empathy and responsibility - Archie Goodwin fits all of those emotions into his plot.

Which leads me right to thoughts on the economy of the story. Again, it runs only eight pages. Yet through efficient use of word balloons - to the eye on a drive-by, the pages seem wordy - and Colan's deft hand at illustrating every panel in such a way as to augment the scripted words, there is some serious bang for the buck. One might think of the gag comics, such as Loony Tunes or Archie where several tales comprise one issue. This is certainly no gag story, and is so much more fleshed out and dynamic that one would have to think a tremendous amount of planning had to occur to make this fit, and work. And does it!

The Bad: The only thing I'd mention here is the subject matter. And I mean that in a historical sense. In the preface to the chapter, the reader is informed of the nature and prevalence of Nazi experiments on prisoners. Jewish prisoners, Roma, homosexuals, women, and on and on. Medical value? Hardly. So who profited? Well, among others you might recognize the names of some companies that financed and/or authorized medical experimentation on inmates, and others who profited from slave labor: Bayer, Siemens, Zeppelin, Shell Oil, Ikon, Daimler Benz, and many more.

The Ugly: This watershed event in human history. As you've learned about me by now, I've studied the Holocaust in depth for the better part of the past 20 years. I've continued to read, encounter survivors, and teach. I constantly have new questions, and deal with the fact that most of those will never have satisfactory answers. Because there is no such thing as any means to explain away these horrible stories. One day maybe we'll figure it out; unfortunately, "Never Again" seems to keep playing out.

If you have come by for the first time today, please click on the label "Holocaust" below to be taken to a few other posts I've written on comics and art as they relate to the Shoah. Specifically, you'll find my chapter-by-chapter reviews of Art Spiegelman's Maus.

Guest Writer - Thoughts on Eerie 9, with Simon

Doug: We're in for a treat today, friends. Going back several years, the Bronze Age Babies regularly featured guest writers. When I started this new blog, I knew there would be times when I wouldn't be able to meet my goal of publishing twice weekly. So right from the top, in pre-blog publicity to friends who'd stood by us at the BAB, I made an offer to all writers with an idea - bring it, try it, I'll make it happen. Today I'm quite pleased to feature the thoughts of Simon, he of The Glass Walking Stick. Simon's been a contemporary and friend of ours for many years. We now interact primarily on Twitter, and I think you'll find him thoughtful and right in line with the love of Bronze Age comics we all share.

Doug: In one of the stories featured below, you'll see a Holocaust-era tale by Archie Goodwin and Gene Colan. That story is reprinted in a book I purchased in the spring: We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust, by Rafael Medoff, Neal Adams, and Craig Yoe. It's a wonderful collection - quite thought-provoking as you'd imagine. It's also an effective survey of just how that event has been handled from shortly after the War to the near-present. Simon has inspired me to give my own spin to "Experiment in Fear!" at some distant time.

Doug: Now, enough from me - let's get to the work of today's guest writer.

Eerie 9 (May 1967)
Warren Publishing

Simon: Hello. First of all, many thanks to Doug for kindly inviting me to do a guest post here at Black & White And Bronze! One of the most significant aspects of the B&W comics of the Silver and Bronze Ages is that they allowed artists to break out from the restrictions of the four-colour comics. The lack of Comic Code approval meant stories could be more adult (or adolescent at least...), while artwork could be presented on larger pages (typically 11" x 8.5" instead of 10" x 6.5") and the B&W format allowed for more artistic experimentation. The leader in the larger-format market was Warren Publishing who struck (monochromatic) gold with their horror mags Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Although Marvel, Skywald and Atlas attempted to replicate this success they never came near to Jim Warren's creepy creations. I'm going to spotlight an issue of Eerie, #9 from May 1967, which may be stretching the definition of the Bronze Age, but which is a great example of the artistic delights of the format. Behind a suitably, er, eerie cover by Dan Adkins, this issue contains some sterling work by top comics creators Archie Goodwin, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan and Adkins himself. We'll start with Sturdy Steve...

Simon: "Isle Of The Beast" is a self-aware twist on that hoary old chiller, "The Most Dangerous Game", in which a hapless shipwrecked sailor finds himself pursued across a desert island by a sadistic big-game hunter. For those familiar with Ditko's super hero and fantasy work for Marvel and Charlton this must have been a revelation as the artist used the freedom of the B&W format to work in a beautiful "wash" style, with varying shades of grey and black achieving masterful effects. This painterly approach is evident on this splash page as Ditko creates wonderful three-dimensional landscapes with nary a "hard" inked line in sight. See the contrast between the dark, devilish form of the villain, the delicate impressions of jungle foliage and the Eisner-esque folds and creases in the sailor's clothes. These effects simply wouldn't have been possible in a colour comic, given the printing capabilities of the time.

Simon: By contrast, Gene Colan's artwork for "Experiment In Fear!" shows how these techniques could amplify the realism of Archie Goodwin's hard-edged script. Colan was an artist who always worked superbly with light and shade in his pencil work - something many of his inkers struggled to convey in the finished product. As seen on this splash page, Colan inks his own pencils here and also adds wash tones which give the faces of the main characters a palpably three-dimensional feel. This is suitably ironic as these characters are Nazi officers whose cruel experiments on Jewish prisoners mark them out as more inhuman than any of the supernatural antagonists in the rest of the magazine. The realism of the artwork makes this story, for me, the most chilling piece in this issue.

Simon: Finally in this trilogy of terror, we meet "The Wanderer" in a moody fantasy from Goodwin and Dan Adkins. This eerie, eschatological tale of a man's soul trapped between life and death takes us on a journey through a black and white limbo. Adkins' work was often oddly static but here it seems appropriate as the main character floats helplessly through a hellish afterlife. The interplay of light and shadow on the unnamed man's face perfectly conveys his wonder and horror, while the final panel beautifully evokes the heat and turmoil of the fiery pit... and all in monochrome.

Doug: My thanks to Simon for his analysis and presentation today - all images are scans of the magazine itself. And it looks to be in great shape, even 50-some years later! Now for your part - please feel free to leave a comment with your own impressions.