Rip Jagger's Dojo: Weird War Tales!

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Weird War Tales!

This oddball little big collection hit the stands last week to very little fanfare. What we have in this handsome but relatively inexpensive black and white collection are some really fantastic weird stories drawn by the likes of Joe Kubert and Alex Toth. The series began as a reprint comics gathering occult-themed war stories from across the years, but eventually morphed into an all-new ongoing feature.

There's quite a bit of work by both guys in the early issues, especially by Kubert. Later issues feature Luis Dominguez, Alex Nino and Alfredo Alcala among other dandy artists. The collection spans from 1971 to 1974, so it offers up a nice glimpse of how DC changed its staff during those years, relying more and more on overseas artwork, especially on anthology books like this one. One treat is Walt Simonson's very first story for DC, a short little opus right in the middle of this offbeat phone book reprint.

This book exists in a cool nexus between DC's typically superb war comics and their equally excellent horror books of this time. The stories by Bob Haney, Sheldon Mayer, Robert Kanigher, and others do not disappoint, or at least have not yet. The comic would go on to have a nice run well into the 80's.

This one is recommended for anyone looking for a little bit of something different and exceedingly well crafted to read. Love the logo, a disturbing but evocative compression of Kubert figures.

Here are the issues contained in this volume.