C’est la Guerre: Johnny Canuck!

This post originally appeared on FreakSugar.com

Johnny Canuck: Compendium, 1942-1946. art by Leo Bachle.

Undoubtedly, one of the most famous images in comic book history is the cover for Captain America Comics #1 where Cap marks his premiere by delivering a devastating right hook to Adolf Hitler’s jaw while deflecting and dodging the hail of gunfire from der Fuhrer’s guards. The red, white, and blue-garbed Steve Rogers wasn’t the only North American comic hero to do some Hitler-punching, however, being followed in 1942 by Canada’s own Johnny Canuck. Canada’s Golden Age of comics was born out of World War II. As part of the British Commonwealth, Canada had been at war since September of 1939, and by the end of 1940, Canadian soldiers, sailors, and airmen had already mobilized and been sent into combat against German forces, including during the Battle of France and the ongoing Battle of Britain.

Perhaps even more importantly, however, Canada had rapidly become the storehouse and arsenal of the Commonwealth, shipping thousands of tons of food, equipment, weapons, and aircraft to Britain. As the supply of engines and equipment from England for building British-designed aircraft and equipment was suspended in May of 1940, Canada had to purchase such supplies from the US, leading to a growing trade imbalance between the two countries. This in turn led to the War Exchange Conservation Act (WECA) of December, 1940, which banned the importation to Canada of “non-essential” material and products from the USA. This included American comic books, and created a vacuum that Canadian publishers rushed to fill. With the war effort having first call on colored ink supplies and presses, Canadian comics publishers defaulted to books with colored covers, but black-and-white interiors, earning the books the nickname of “whites.”

As in American comics, Canadian comics characters spent a great deal of time fighting the Nazis and the Japanese both at home and abroad, and in 1942, 17-year-old Leo Bachle created the most famous, and most beloved wartime Canadian hero, Johnny Canuck. Bachle’s feature ran in Bell Publishing’s Dime Comics from 1942 – 1946 (although Bachle had left Bell for the more lucrative waters of New York comic publishing before the WECA was lifted in 1946.) Collected and Kickstarted in 2015 by Rachel Richey, and published by Chapterhouse, Johnny Canuck: Compendium, 1942-1946 brings together all 28 Johnny Canuck stories in one hardback volume that provides an incredibly fun foray into the Golden Age of comics.

Johnny Canuck script and art by Leo Bachle.

Johnny Canuck, “Canada’s Answer to Nazi Oppression,” spends a great deal of time shirtless and solving problems with his fists in adventures that roar by with the pacing of a missile. Each installment runs from 7 to 10 pages, so the action comes fast and thick. Johnny is brave, loyal, square-jawed and powerfully built, while the Nazis are drawn, manacled, scarred, and all speak in a dialect dripping with phrases like “Und I shall collect der ten thousand marks dot haf been offered by our illustrious leader!” Indeed, sentences in Johnny Canuck only end with question marks or exclamation point, with the latter far outnumbering the former as Johnny fights his way through North Africa, Soviet Russia, Yugoslavia, the Pacific, Germany, and France.

Subtlety is not what these comics are about. Good is good and bad is bad, and the tones are simple black and whites. The stories are simple, amply populated with slim, beautiful women who all (even the evil Nazi spy-girls) at have at least a little bit of a thing for our fearless (and shirtless) hero, and are written with classic cliff-hanger endings for every issue. In fact, the Johnny Canuck strips are more similar to old movie serials from the 1930s and early 1940s than anything else, with the same, breathless, breakneck pace. Artistically, Bachle takes his style from Alex Raymond and Milton Caniff, and one of the most interesting things about the Compendium is that the reader sees Bachle’s style and talent grow from merely very skilled into an artist working fully in his own style, and one who comes to use the black and white format of the Canadian Whites to his full advantage, reveling in deep blacks, chiaroscuro, and meticulous line work. Here the Johnny Canuck strips work as a kind of montage of the creator’s development, for Bachle was churning out dozens of different strips for Bell at the same time he was working on Johnny Canuck, accruing thousands of hours of experience and experimentation in just four short years.

Johnny Canuck written and drawn by Leo Bachle.

Like almost all comics of the era Johnny Canuck was produced at the writer/artist’s tops speed, and with minimal editorial oversight. Bell Publishing was far more concerned with getting the books in print and selling than with proper spelling, realism, or even necessarily more than passable art. Comic books, after all, were viewed as disposable entertainment for kids, who wouldn’t notice unconventional spelling or grammar. Nonetheless, Johnny Canuck became a Canadian sensation, beloved by not only kids, but adults, including Canadian servicemen overseas. Late in the war, Bachle was even detained on the Canadian side of the border when attempting to return to his new job in New York City because he had been deemed to be “vital to the war effort” because of Johnny.

Johnny Canuck, written and drawn by Leo Bachle.

 

 

In all, the Axis-smashing adventures of Johnny Canuck are an incredibly joyous romp through the Golden Age, and a tremendously eye-opening look into the war-time psyche of a culture that we Americans tend to see as polite to a fault, and not at all the kind of folks who would go about socking anyone in the jaw. Shows what we know. So, pick up Johnny Canuck: Compendium, 1942-1946 from your local comic shop or direct from Chapterhouse, and kick back and enjoy a simpler time, when no one was questioning whether or not one should punch Nazis.

The post C’est la Guerre: Johnny Canuck! appeared first on Freaksugar.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2gseyKT
via IFTTT

C’est la Guerre: #ComicsHateNazis

This post originally appeared on FreakSugar.com

Our Army at War #160, cover art by Joe Kubert.

In response to the neo-Nazi/white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, VA this past weekend, comic writer/historian/activist Gail Simone asked comics fans to post pictures of comic book heroes fighting Nazis under the hashtag #ComicsHateNazis. Needless to say, the response was immediate, immense, and the tag was soon trending in a big way across multiple platforms. People posted image after image from throughout comics history showing superheroes punching Nazis or destroying swastikas and other Nazi symbols, and it was good – an affirmation that the medium we all love so much had consistently stood against such a repugnant ideology. Yet in all the panels showing the tights-and-capes crowd taking it to the fascists, I found it odd that no one had apparently posted any images from the vast field of war comics. So, I decided to post one of my own, and one issue immediately came to my mind: Our Army at War #160, from November of 1965.

Of course, fighting Nazis was the bread and butter of American war comics, but at their best, war comics often used that basic premise as a vehicle for commentary on the contemporary culture, and when done right, that commentary was devastating. Enter OAAW #160’s main story “What’s the Color of Your Blood?” written by Robert Kanigher with art by Joe Kubert. The story centers around Jackie Johnson, an ahistorical African-American GI serving in Sgt. Rock’s otherwise majority-white Easy Company (historically, during WWII, US Army units were segregated). First introduced in 1961 in OAAW #113, Jackie Johnson was one of the first non-stereotyped African-American characters to appear in mainstream comics, and the character’s total acceptance as just another incredibly capable “combat-happy Joe of Easy Co.” remains one of the most powerful anti-segregation, anti-racist statements in comics, particularly coming as it did during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

Our Army at War #113, cover by Joe Kubert.

Four years later, Jackie had evolved into a kind of combination of Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis, as a former world heavyweight boxing champion who had been defeated before the war by “Storm Trooper” Uhlan in Madison Square Garden, where Uhlan served as an exemplar of the Nazi’s Aryan racial ideal. In the comic, Rock, Jackie, and Wild Man have been captured by a German paratrooper unit led by none other than “Strom Trooper” Uhlan himself. The story centers around a rematch between Uhlan and Jackie, intended by the Nazis to underline their racial superiority. Throughout the match, Uhlan demands that Jackie admit that his blood isn’t red like a man’s but black – inferior. There are some twists and turns in the story, and the reader is treated to some more of Jackie’s backstory along with a retelling of the events in OAAW #113, but the climactic moment lands like a bomb. For my money it’s one of the greatest moments in comics, and was my contribution to #ComicsHateNazis:

Our Army at War #160, script by Robert Kanigher, art by Joe Kubert.

With this story Kanigher and Kubert unflinchingly linked Nazi and American racism directly, refusing to see any difference. To cap things off, the issue ends with Jackie unhesitating volunteering to give Uhlan a lifesaving blood transfusion. It is not only a refutation of the pseudo-science of racism, but a declaration that a person’s worth has nothing to do with genetics, and everything to do with their character. Facts which are as true today as they were then.

Our Army at War #160.

The post C’est la Guerre: #ComicsHateNazis appeared first on Freaksugar.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2v55GfA
via IFTTT

C’est la Guerre: GoFundMe for Sam Glanzman

This post originally appeared on FreakSugar.com

Sam Glanzman brought a passion and style to his art that is instantly recognizable, and which quite literally helped to define an entire genre. He will be very sorely missed.

Sam Glanzman, grand-master of the war comics genre and of the comics medium itself, died on July 12 this year, aged 92. Mr. Glanzman worked in the comics industry for almost 80 years, beginning in 1939 at the age of 15. When he turned 18 in December of 1942, however, Mr. Glanzman traded in his artist’s brushes for sailor’s denims, and enlisted in the Navy. After boot camp, Sam joined the crew of DD479, the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Stevens, on which he would serve until the war ended in late 1945. Along the way the Stevens would participate in in 16 different naval operations in the Pacific Theater, destroying 14 Japanese planes, including some engaged in kamikaze attacks against the ship, and the ship was awarded three commendations. In short, the Stevens was an American destroyer in World War II, one of the famous “Tin Cans,” small, fast, fragile, and capable of taking on a variety of missions and operations, some of which had never been envisioned by her designers.

Sam Glanzman at his desk in 2010.

Against regulations, Mr. Glanzman kept a journal of his time aboard the Stevens, complete with sketches and finished artwork illustrating the ship, her crew, and the events and sights he saw during his tour of duty. After the war, he became a professional illustrator, eventually taking a job drawing comics for Charlton Comics in 1958. There he became known for his work on Carleton’s historical war comics, producing detailed, accurate illustrations and stories. By the mid-1960s, Mr. Glanzman was regularly freelancing for Charlton and Dell working largely on war comics like Dell’s Combat, but also branching out to do fantasy work on titles like Tarzan, and co-created (with Joe Gill), Adventures of the Man-God Hercules, in which, freed from the need for historical accuracy, he was able to stretch his artistic muscles, creating a comic that was highly stylized and experimental for the time. In war comics, working with Will Franz, Mr. Glanzman co-created the legendary “The Lonely War of Willie Shultz” for Charlton’s Fightin’ Army.

All this time, his wartime journals and experiences on the Stevens lay largely untouched save as reference material when drawing other stories (fictional and non) set in the war. Until, that is, late 1969 when Mr. Glanzman joined DC’s stable of regular freelancers under the editorial auspices of Joe Kubert. The first USS Stevens story, “Frightened Boys… Or Fighting Men” appeared in Our Army at War 218, cover dated April 1970. A four-page tale, “Frightened Boys…” was still something different, something special. A simple story of a group of newly assigned sailors undergoing their baptism of fire aboard the Stevens during a kamikaze attack, in four pages, Mr. Glanzman caught the terror, the courage, and the desperation of these terribly young men at war, with the story flowing from panel to panel with a grace and easy fluidity that would become a hallmark of his work. Despite becoming the primary illustrator for DC’s G.I. Combat’s “Haunted Tank” stories, it would be these small back-page stories that would cement Mr. Glanzman’s place as one of comics’ greats. He would go on to write Stevens stories for DC through 1977, and would return to the ship and her crew again and again in the 1980s for Marvel’s Savage Tales. In 2013, Mr. Kubert would ask Mr. Glanzman to revive the Stevens for what would be Mr. Kubert’s last work, Joe Kubert Presents, insisting that Mr. Glanzman was one of the finest artists he had ever known.

Opening page of the first USS Stevens story for DC comics, in Our Army at War 218 (1970). Story and art by Sam Glanzman.

In recent years, Eisner-nominated editor Drew Ford has brought Mr. Glanzman’s work back into publication, beginning with A Sailor’s Story  and The USS Stevens: The Collected Stories from Dover Press, and following up with Red Range and the forthcoming Voyage to the Deep from Mr. Ford’s own It’s Alive Press. In the wake of Mr. Glanzman’s final illness, Mr. Ford has created a Go Fund Me campaign to help Mr. Glanzman’s widow, and to celebrate his long career by publishing Sam Glanzman Forever, a tribute to the artist which will include unpublished letters, art, photographs, and tributes from Mr. Glanzman’s fellow professionals and fans alike. At the time of writing the campaign has raised a little over $16,000 of its $20,000 goal, but donations are still being accepted, and gifts of $175 and up receive original artwork by Mr. Glanzman or pieces donated by other artists, including work by Jok and Al Milgrom. Previous volumes from It’s Alive have been incredibly high quality, and there is no reason to believe that Sam Glanzman Forever will be any different. If you can, donate. You’ll not only be helping out the family of one of comics’ greats, but you’ll also have the opportunity to own a collector’s item that is guaranteed to be something special.

In a medium where art and story all too often feel like interchangeable, pre-packaged, industrial productions, Sam Glanzman brought a passion and style to his art that is instantly recognizable, and which quite literally helped to define an entire genre. He will be very sorely missed.

The post C’est la Guerre: GoFundMe for Sam Glanzman appeared first on Freaksugar.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2fbGrpJ
via IFTTT