Battling Britons Edited by Justin Marriott (Out Now)

 

Growing up in the sixties and seventies one of the most popular genres of comic book stories was the Second World War, though other conflicts did feature. I recall being taken to the now closed cinema in Dorking to see Zulu as a young child by my father and being memorised by the spectacular action. A little later we went to see The Battle of Britain. These two films are two of all-time favourites.

War stories were common to all the "boys papers" I picked up like Victor and Valiant plus there were all those little "pocket picture library" books like Commando, Battle and Air Ace which despite their heavier cost often found their way into my young hands.

The Second World War was the main focus of these tales as so many peoples parents and grandparents had lived & fought their way through those difficult years. My own mother was a holocaust survivor having fled Czechoslovakia at the age of 8 when the Germans invaded. 

This country remained proud of it's stand against the Nazi's and these ideas of heroism and British resourcefulness found their way into the British national consciousness. Even Dad's Army represented the ethics of this plucky little nation.

This weighty volume contains over 200 reviews of various war stories from British comics of those two decades and later mainly focusing on the picture libraries but also looking at the later and more gritty Warlord and Battle comics launched in the seventies.

This book can be rad in two ways either straight through or as I have chosen to dip in and out in a quiet moment and am quietly considering which comics to try and grab hold of. There's quite a lot I'd like to read but despite coveting them all like most people I am limited by time, money and other interests. 

The reviews seem fair from looking at these stories I have read and these are amusingly awarded grenades" rather than "stars" as I do for new publications on this blog.  There's plenty of illustrations to tantalise the collecting bug inherent in our dna so all I can say is grab a copy direct from Amazon.

Rating: 5 Stars plus (Highly Recommended)