Reading – Blazing Combat

This past weekend I picked up a copy of Mike Conroy’s War Stories: A Graphic History* and, while reading the book, realized that I have done all of you a great disservice by not pointing at the Blazing Combat* book that collects all four issues of the old Warren magazine into a single book. Well, let’s pretend that it’s late 2009 and I posted this as soon as I finished reading the book.

Available in Hardcover and Softcover

So why do I want to pretend that it’s late 2009? Because then I can say that the Blazing Combat hardcover* is a fantastic bargain and you shouldn’t even consider buying the softcover. Unfortunately, the reality is that the hardcover seems to be getting a bit scarce so the online shops are starting to bump up the price — sometimes well above the $28.99 cover price — so there’s a good chance that if you want the collection you’ll have to go after the softcover. And that’s very sad because Fantagraphics (website, Twitter) did a great job with the hardcover. Beautiful cover, great binding, sturdy paper. In fact, the only negative thing I’m going to say about this book is that the original Frazetta covers were all printed too damned small in the book. Each should have been a full page!

But Let’s Talk About the Stories

Blazing Combat’s history is quite well covered at Wikipedia, so rather than eat space discussing this anti-war comics magazine of the sixties I’ll direct you over there. But I do want to point out a few specific stories that stick out in my mind as I think through this masterpiece collection.

Enemy

Written by Archie Goodwin (as most of the stories in the book are) and illustrated by John Severin, Enemy depicts a United States soldier in WWII who goes too far in exacting revenge on an enemy combatant. A coincidence leads to a murder, and the twist ending highlights — as many of the stories in the book do — the horrors of war. I think this may be my top story in the book; it’s stark, terrifyingly chilling, and entirely believable.

Water Hole

Archie Goodwin writes this soldiers vs. Indians story that’s illustrated by Gray Morrow, and it’s one of the brutal stories in the book. The review at Now Read This says of this tale:

The Indian Wars of 1885 provided Gray Morrow with an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the only true winner of genocide in ‘Water Hole’ . . .

Landscape

Joe Orlando illustrates this story by Archie Goodwin (who, by the way, wrote or contributed to every story in the book) set in Vietnam. Landscape shows a simple farmer trying to survive, trying to exist as war rages around him, and eventually shows just what happens to the civilians who are caught in the war. It is not a happy ending.

Interviews

The book closes with involved, extensive, and interesting interviews with publisher James Warren and editor/author Archie Goodwin. These interviews show the thinking behind a doomed project, and it’s impressive to hear that Warren entered into publishing this willing to lose money on each issue. Warren and Goodwin strongly believed in the work and I’m happy to say that the collection is a near-perfect volume that celebrates their dedication to the project . . . even if the book was published over 40 years after the magazines were first published.

Closing Thoughts

Blazing Combat* is a book I’m quite proud to have in my collection. It’s a work of art, has a message that’s strong even over 40 years after the material was first created, and I’ll come back to this at least once every few years.

For another viewpoint see this review at I Love Rob Liefeld (I love that blog title) and then seek out your own copy of the book. The hardcover is definitely superior to the softcover, but regardless of which you choose I think you definitely want this if you’re a fan of comic books as art.