Veterans Day - The Guys In The Foxhole!

Perhaps the Mainline comic with the most verve and energy was Foxhole, a war comic produced by men who had real experience in the military. While Joe Simon had enlisted in the Coast Guard and spent all of the war stateside, Jack Kirby was overseas as an Army scout in Europe following on some weeks after the D-Day invasion. Here's an interview of sorts about his time in the war.

There's no doubt that Jack Kirby's World War II experiences shaped the rest of his life and career and it finds some early expression here in the highly emotional images which grace these covers.

Once again Simon and Kirby produced four issues for their struggling Mainline company before the title and the balance of the material was sold off to Charlton Comics in 1955.

Charlton produced three more issues of the comic erratically through 1956.

Then the title was changed to Never Again for one single issue in the summer of 1956.

That winter the title was changed again with the very next stand alone issue to Soldier and Marine Comics.

Finally the title was changed again in 1957 to Jerry Drummer and the focus was shifted from modern warfare to the history of the American Revolution.

Jerry Drummer lasted three issues until being cancelled with the eleventh issue in late 1957 bringing the original Foxhole run to an end.

But in 1963 and 1964 the pirate comics operation I.W.Publishing / Super Comics came out with three irregularly numbered issues of Foxhole.

The original Foxhole comic by Simon and Kirby was intended to have significant edge, bringing a energy and depth to the depiction of the horrors of war. As can be seen by this rejected cover for the fourth and final Mainline issue, Simon and Kirby were striving to communicated the violence of war to a broad audience. Despite the rejection of the art, I'm still struck by the amazing portraits Kirby created for the fourth issue, one of my all-time favorite comic book covers.

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A Soldier's Stories - Kirby At War!

In these times, the glorification of war is hardly sustainable. The horrors of war are all too readily apparent due to modern communications methods. That said, the romanticism of war remains to some degree when applied to the dedication and rigor of men and women who commit to that service. Jacob (Jack Kirby) Kurtzberg was one of those men who served his country during the war which put down Fascism and saved the planet from decades if not centuries of oppression. Kirby survived his stint in the war and became as we all know arguably the greatest and most influential talent in all of comic books. Among the thousands and thousands of pages of comic art he generated were some which chronicled the doings of soldiers in that war. Though he is less famous for his war material than greats like Joe Kurbert, Sam Glanzman, Russ Heath, Harvey Kurtzman, John Severin, Irv Novick, and Jerry Grandenetti, he nonetheless brought a distinctive character and raw energy to the task. Below are some of my favorite Kirby comic book covers which combine that distinctive Kirby power with harsh reality of war.

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Let Slip The Dogeared Pages Of War!

After last month's focus on love it's only fitting I suppose that this month the focus is on war. In some ways it can argued that most of stories that Jack Kirby is famous are war stories of some kind. (Certainly Captain America, New Gods and Thor fall into that broad category.) Not surprisingly as one of the multitude of brave American men and women who served during World War II, Jacob Kurtzburg was changed by that monumental event in fundamental ways which informed the rest of his life. Though a master of presenting action on the comic book page, Kirby never seemed to want to necessarily glorify violence. It had consequences for those who were part of it and even those who perpetrated it. Kirby saw violence in the streets of New York as a young boy and he got all anyone could ever want overseas in the European war front. He doesn't come across as a man who was haunted by the war thankfully, but he was transformed and never seemed ever to forget the cost of battle and the reasons that sometimes wars have to be fought.

I want to take a gander at some of Jack Kirby's war comics, surprisingly few actually given his particular experience. He along with his partner Joe Simon created for DC Comics many new series but perhaps the most successful was Boy Commandos. Later he gave us more realistic down-to-earth war adventures in titles like Foxhole from Mainline, Warfront for Harvey, and Battle for Atlas. Expect to see many select covers from those series and others in the regular "Favorite Covers" feature all this month.

Up front and in focus though will be a review of Kirby's famous war book for Marvel's early days Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. Kirby  and his partner Stan Lee produced the first half dozen or so issues of that run before handing the artistic reins off to veteran inker Dick Ayers. According to some Fury is what Kirby aspired to be seen as, his ideal of a tough guy who people respected and responded to. Look for these adventures on weekends throughout the month.

And then there's The Losers. At the end of his tenure at DC in the 70's Kirby handled one of DC's many war titles - Our Fighting Forces which at the time was featuring the adventures of a ragtag team of warriors from different branches of the U.S. military - Johnny Cloud, Captain Storm, and the somewhat dynamic duo of Sarge and Gunner. Kirby claimed he didn't much care for the premise of this series, but it didn't stop him from creating some surprisingly memorable stories with this bunch of losers, This month the Dojo takes a leisurely look at arguably Kirby's most overlooked series.

"Make War No More" was the slogan on many DC Comics of the era. But make more war comics certainly especially when that maker is Jack "King" Kirby would have been the motto for any comics fan.

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