Tuesday 28 April 2015

Garth Ennis' Battlefields

When I posted about Osprey's planned foray into the world of comics, I mentioned Garth Ennis recent War Stories and Battlefields series. It was only later that I realised i had only read the War Stories comics and not the Battlefields ones, so quickly popped an order off to Amazon for the first of the three collections of stories.

I must say the three collected stories in the volume one are all excellent stories and superbly illustrated by three different artists. Ennis certainly doesn't pull his punches in describing the horrors of war and these are certainly not kids comics.

The three stories are The Night Witches, the story of Soviet female aviators in the Great Patriotic War, The Tankies, a story of a novice British tank crew in Normandy and Dear Billy. The latter is an incredibly moving story of a young nurse in the Far East and her traumatic experiences. All three of the stories had a cinematic quality to them, but Dear Billy would make for a great film.

Wargamers will get a lot out of The Night Witches and Tankies, but all three stories are excellent and Battlefields volume one is well worth getting hold of...

2 comments:

  1. These look good, Steve! Garth Ennis is fairly familiar to me from the pages if the galaxy's greatest comic, 2000 AD ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree that these are great. I came to Ennis via Preacher and The Punisher comics, but his war ones are obviously a labour of love. I'm sure I've read an interview where he talks about his love of the old Commando Comics but wanting to bring in more of the "Charles War" feel to his stories. The follow up Battlefield Stories (which feature the same War Witches and a Tankies in Korea are also brilliantly done. His "Adventures of The Rifle Brigade" and "War Stories" series are also worth looking out, although are a bit less serious.

    ReplyDelete