Infinite Bronze War Thread 11 11

[bronze johnny]

I was wondering if any war collectors ever ordered the toy army sets that were usually advertised on the back covers?

[MisterX]

I was wondering if any war collectors ever ordered the toy army sets that were usually advertised on the back covers?

 

I never did, but I did have an awesome Marx Guns of Navarone playset!

 

Guns of Navarone!

 

[Jeffro.]

 

I never did, but I did have an awesome Marx Guns of Navarone playset!

 

I had that too. best playset ever. I still have the two yellow cannon around somewhere.

 

[MisterX]

 

I never did, but I did have an awesome Marx Guns of Navarone playset!

 

I had that too. best playset ever. I still have the two yellow cannon around somewhere.

 

 

That's the one!

 

Man, I loved that playset.

 

Every once and awhile, I get the urge to buy it again. As far as Marx playsets go, it's on the lower end, price-wise. But, a good, complete set can run you around $400 or so.

[Fazybones]

Here's a good one:

 

 

I mean what ten year old could resist that book on the stands?

 

 

Wow, look at those colors and I love the DC giants, either the 48 or 52 pagers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite one for last.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Fazybones

[MisterX]

Great books, Fay! That WWT 5 is particularly nice.

[greggy]

I can't wait till my prostate exam. I hope the DR has big fingers.

[Logan510]

I can't wait till my prostate exam. I hope the DR has big fingers.

 

 

 

[oakman29]

I can't wait till my prostate exam. I hope the DR has big fingers.

 

 

 

My "female" Dr. just gave me one,the most sex I've had in ten years.

[Hepcat]

...I love the DC giants, either the 48 or 52 pagers.

 

My favorite one for last.

 

 

Nice group of war comics!

 

(thumbs u

[Fazybones]

...I love the DC giants, either the 48 or 52 pagers.

 

My favorite one for last.

 

 

Nice group of war comics!

 

(thumbs u

 

Thanks and you gotta love the 100 pagers too and they seem harder to

find in HG. My favorite Registry set is Greggy's 100 pagers and those are

wicked.

 

This is my favorite issue closely followed by OAAW 242 which I'm still searching for a nice copy. I notice quite a few of those OAAW 242's have a small spine

split or small tear at the bottom of the spine.

 

 

I just noticed my 3600th post and it comes with a compliment to Greggy.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Fazybones

[Jeffro.]

 

 

[Hepcat]

Thanks and you gotta love the 100 pagers too and they seem harder to find in HG. My favorite Registry set is Greggy's 100 pagers and those are

wicked.

 

Screw looking at some arcane on-line registry! Burnaby is just a long walk from downtown Vancouver. So just march up to Greggy's door and tell him you want to see his stuff, and no holding out on you either!

 

Edited September 13, 2012 by Hepcat

[greggy]

 

 

[bigfiver69]

The 48/52 pagers are one of the best mini-runs to put together... just great, great books. It seemed that all the artists and writers were right on their games during that period.

 

In answer to a previous question about the toy soldier sets that were often advertised on the front and back covers or war comics, I did order some...

 

In 1979/early 1980 many of the books advertised Toy Soldier sets in HO (1/72) sale that were put out by Atlantic. I ordered the German infantry and the Afrika Korps set, and they didn't disappoint. Just wonderful miniatures that stacked up nicely against my Airfix British 8th Army. I think they were around a buck. Had to go the bank for a $USD money order!

 

I never bought 'Tank Trap' or 'Task Force' or 'Wood Edge' from the storied Helen of Toy company as a kid, though I did pick one up on ebay some years ago (wasn't cheap either). It was truly, truly a piece of ca-ca.

 

Shep

[bronze johnny]

Shep,

 

They just don't make toys like they use to! Those playsets were awesome. My friends and I would get lost in those sets for days.

 

John

[bronze johnny]

Here's a question I want to ask and I'm going to add a poll. I've always believed that the War Comics were way ahead of the superhero and other genres when it came to tackling real issues. It's especially clear with the "anti-war war comic books" that came out during the Vietnam War.

 

Do you think the realism presented in War Comics was one of the major reasons for its decline?

[Jeffro.]

I voted not sure because I really have no idea what brought on the decline. I think some genres and some characters do have a shelf life though. It amazes me that DC war comics lasted into the late 80's. Sometimes, the people who bought those comics at one time, move on to other things and they are not replaced by new readers. Look at all the various comics and characters that Harvey published. They're mostly gone now. Do we see Dennis the Menace comics anymore? No. Archie is still going but they seem to be the exception.

 

All this bums me out to no end because I'd love to see new Sgt Rock, Haunted Tank, etc stories done in the old style. I'd like to see the same for the Harvey characters. Sadly, the world seems to have moved on.

 

We're fortunate to have been treated to a few new Sgt Rock and Easy Co. stories by Kubert in recent years but even that isn't possible anymore.

[bigfiver69]

I voted no, becuase I think that the decline of war comics was a direct results of cultural changes in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

 

In the 1950s and 60s, most kids had a dad or an uncle who served in the war. So there were first-hand connections to that war and to the military, with all of its symbolism.

 

During the same period, the war loomed very large in the public mind in many ways. Most politicians were veterans. There was always a war movie in the theatre. There was a massive paperback business based on fiction and non-fiction war accounts. Shows like '12 o-clock high' and 'Combat' were popular. War comics were just another branch of this broad cultural meme.

 

Those things began to disappear as the war faded from immediate memory in the mid to late 1970s. Also, the advent of cable TV and at home video games meant kids had other places to spend their free time and money. As a result, comics sales in general sank. War comics sales went into a freefall.

 

There is also a general theme that American fighting nazis in this period acted as a proxy for the much more real comtemporary threats of America fighting the cold war, and Vietnam in particular. The Soviet threat began to fade in the early to mid '80s... just as war comics did.

 

The final nail in the coffin was the changing of the editorial guard in the early 80s. At DC in particular, there was very little editorial appetite for genre books of any kind after, say, 1981-82. You could even say that after the 1978 implosion, the writing was on the wall. The fact that Sgt. Rock lasted another 10 years, seems something of a miracle in retrospect.

 

Shep

[MisterX]

I recently bought a bunch of late Bronze/Early copper books from Andy, mostly dollar-size GIC and Sgt Rocks.

 

Wow, these are pretty wacky. Kanigher is still the writer (after almost 30 years) and I guess he just wrote whatever he felt like.

 

The tone veers from the amazingly pulpy, with robots, zombies, ninjas, mad scientists and the like (like this page from GIC 240)...

 

 

To surprisingly grisly stuff that's like somthing out of a Sven Hassel book (like this page from GIC 256)...

 

 

I don't remember anything like that happening during Kanigher's '68-'74 "Make War No More," days!

 

Why do you suppose the depictions of violence went from one extreme to the other?