Customer Reviews

Charley's War (Vol. 2): 1 August - 17 October 1916

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Absolutely fantastic just as emotional and visually exciting as when I first read them as a child. Beautifully presented and reprinted. Highly reccomended to anyone interested in the first world war or looking to get into studying it as a hobby. Keep em coming !!!

It's actually quite impossible to come up with something concerning the second collection of comics about Charley Bourne and his experiences during WWI that I haven't already mentioned in my review of the first collection.

This amazing comic simply keeps going. It's still as exciting, still as detailed, and most importantly, still as well-written.

However, while the good stuff keeps coming, so does the bad. The lack of color still hamper the realism, and this unfortunate fact is just as frustrating as before. Still, since all the good stuff continues to impress the reader, the overall impression is, once again, nothing but amazement. Not only that, this collection also has several quite abrupt and highly unexpected changes in the storylines, which is very positive. After all, that's how war is.

Finally I just have to mention the fact that there's one scene in particular that, well, came out stronger and more intense that any other scene of war I've ever encountered in a comic. Obviously I won't tell you which one - I prefer not to include spoilers in my reviews - but just let me say that the tragedy of warfare, particularly World War I, suddenly becomes very vivid.

I wrote a review for the first volume of this series when I first found a copy at my local library, since then I was fortunate enough to find an online copy of the entire strip from 79 to 85. What I said in my review of the first volume about the strip featuring information I've never read anywhere else continues throughout the series entire run, you get to see aspects of WWI for the British soldiers ranging from daily life in the trenches to the petty officers and NCO's that the enlisted men had to deal with even in the rear far from the front lines.
The authors managed to figure out ways of allowing their central character to experience nearly every aspect of the war even when he could not possibly have been there (Blue's story, war at sea), He got to experience early tank warfare in the first volume, he experienced field punishment No.1 and a vindictive MP sgt in vol two. Throughout the run of the series he gets to experience the battle of Passchendaele, the mines on the Messines ridge, sniper work, made an enemy of an insane officer, had to deal with a war profiteer, fought Corp. Hitler and meet the Harlem Hell fighters before being briefly stationed in the east in Russia in the closing days of the conflict. This series is one of the finest representations of WWI I have ever seen, even though I have the online copy, basically a computer scan of the original magazine the story was published in, I want to collect this newer high quality copy compleate with the original authors background information on his inspirations for what was done in the series run. I cannot recomend this series more highly for anyone interested in the First World War, if you think that 'All Quiet on the western front' is a classic, then consider this strip to be the graphic novel version. The only real problem with the strip is in the way it was originaly presented, four or five pages per issue forcing the events to be shoehorned within those pages. This sometimes leads to certain events being over too quickly or somewhat bizarre text to describe whats going on. If you can overlook this one bit then the story really grabs you, I find myself wondering what source Pat Mills utilized in his writting, how many actuall veterans he talked too in order to present this series the way that he did. I personally feel this strip stands up well alonside any history book on the war itself and I hope plenty of people out there take the time to read this series, I am so glad that I did.

Any realistic rendition of WWI would get my attention. The style of drawings are exactly the same as those great UK published war comics, mostly about WW2 and done in black and white.

But those were clearly written for a youngish audience, with mateship, cor blimey, cobber, teufel, achtung dialogue, reflecting a rather juvenile approach to writing comics.

Charley's war is done in exactly the same format. While I won't really fault the drawings, the simplistic plot and episodic nature of the tales is not literature. It does give one a chance to revel in nostalgia, but this is not WWI.