As a kid I mostly went for imported Marvel comics for my escapist reading, the superhero genre in particular (I try not to think of what some of these me and my brother had might now be worth!). But there were many other genres; comedy, romance, western, etc. I was flicking through some sites recently looking at the astonishing variety of war comics produced through the 1940s into the early 1960s. The advert below shows the range from just one publisher, and many titles were issued monthly.
The interesting thing about many of these is that the artists and writers had experienced war service themselves, so a lot of these comics had an extra edge to them. It is clear from what’s out there online that only a small percentage of the comics made it over to Britain and I do wonder whether some were pushing the boundaries of what could be sold over here as there had been issues with horror comics and other garish pulp art before (and censorship campaigns in America).
My favourite American comic artist was Jack Kirby, who did serve in WW2, and introduced war elements into many of the superhero titles he drew before then, as well as producing dedicated war comics. But many of these covers have a real drama about them which still has an impact. And of course WW2 was still fairly fresh in many people’s minds, while tensions during the cold war, the Korean war and then Vietnam, are reflected in many comics. And readership age in America did push on further than it did in Britain. This small selection gives an idea. It’s not always easy to know who drew them, sometimes they went uncredited, but I’ve added detail where I’ve been able to find it. Comics generally had an artist who drew the image in pencil, and an inker, who went over the pencil in ink to produce finished art for the printer.
There is another Jack Kirby cover on the site from an issue of Thor.
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