There used to be a DC comic book
Created | Updated Jul 7, 2009
called 'The Haunted Tank'. It was about the crew of a Sherman tank that had visitations from the ghost of the Civil War General William T. Sherman, if I remember correctly.
The images, if not the stories, of those comics are burned in my head forever. I bought them used, for the most part, without covers and sometimes missing pages, from rummage sales and antique stores and used book shops throughout my home town.
My stepfather and teachers did not approve of comic books, mostly because they were functionally illiterate. My stepfather had a problem with my reading of anything. I was supposed to learn to be a functioning member of society. Instead, I moved out of his house at sixteen and signed up for the U.S. Army at seventeen, with the aid of my idiot mother's signature.
I read a lot of comics during my teenage years before I went in the army. I've read a lot more since then. 'The Haunted Tank', 'Weird War', 'Jonah Hex', 'Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos', and 'Sgt. Rock' still figure greatly in my perceptions of graphic art, the myths of war and the reactions of veterans to the possibility of passing on some of their feelings.
War comics have attracted veterans. There was a spate of Vietnam comics and graphic novels in the years before the current unpleasantness. Movies and books do not lend themselves as effectively to the unreality of war as comics do. You have to feel the comic. There is nothing to hold on to with a movie. Books lack the dark visual element of seeing the faces, the uniforms, the italicised words in their natural environment. Comic books have been used by the military for recruiting purposes and in order to attempt to more effectively convince the troops to clean their weapons and avoid having unprotected sex.
