It Was The War of the Trenches

Few people alive today are old enough to remember World War I, and as it recedes into the past, the "war to end all wars" becomes more abstract. But French cartoonist Jacques Tardi's graphic novel, It Was The War of the Trenches (Published by Fantagraphics and translated into English by Fanta's own Kim Thompson), brings the Great War to life in all its mud- and blood-soaked misery.

Without a trace of sentimentality, Tardi's richly detailed and grimly rendered vignettes depict the horror, illness, cruel manipulations, and stupidity of this giant black spot in human history. Tardi wisely avoids the politics and major developments of World War I, choosing to instead present daily life in the freezing, flooded, rat filled trenches, where shell-shocked soldiers waited for their commanding officers to send them on futile suicide missions. Maus creator Art Spiegelman called It Was The War of the Trenches "an essential classic." You can download a 10-page preview of this monumental book here.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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AllisonWunderland

“Great War”

“Civil War”

– ironic oxymorons, eh?
animationarchive

Bruce Bainsfather was the cartoonist who was best known for his ww1 cartoons. His black humor reflected the attitudes of soldiers perfectly, because he was one himself. Google bainsfather bystander old bill to see his terrific work.
- MelSkunk
  
  Dangit, I spent ages trying remember the name of my ex’s original collection of his comic (a period inheritance from a grandfather) (It was called Bullet and Billets) and here’s the name of the artist. If only I had realized.
  
  I strongly recommend Bairnsfather myself. I loved the well done Fragments from France comics he also had, but I recommend the reprint of B&B (it includes his latter work, which I don’t know but assume will be equally well done)
Russell Letson

Anyone interested in following up on this period and its war might want to check the Military Channel, which has aired a number of very good documentaries, including the ten-part “The First World War.” And either Military or History ran “The Last Day of World War I,” narrated by Michael Palin. There are other programs as well, including one on the Battle of the Somme and another on archaeological excavations of the trenches.

You don’t need to engage the international-political level to get the depth of social and political stupidity that powered this bloodbath, right up to the last day.
Shelby Davis

Briefly scanning through the blurb, I read

“brings the Great War to life in all its mud- and blood-soaked GLORY.”

Kinda scared me when I realized my mistake. Says something about me/the culture, I guess. :(
Trent Hawkins

is it bad that I’ve learned more about WW1 through Black Adder then any other source?
Anonymous

Anyone interested in WWI should ckeck this book out. http://www.thenausea.com/elements/documents/waragainstwar.html
Dan Mac

Judging by the number of posted videos, a number of people are spending their weekends on these old battlefields “Relic Hunting”, armed with only metal detectors, magnets and flashlights (for exploring bunkers).
Here are a few: (Mainly WWII)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zTRnTybTQI&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNos9g1RHps&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuBZ_OYp8KM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izr1pGseU6o&feature=related
quitterjunior

I have a strong serve. But a weak Black Hand.
Anonymous

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Charleys-War-June-1-August-1916/dp/1840236272

charley’s war is another profound account of the great war, collect them all!!
Gilbert Wham

In a similar vein, I recommend Pat Mills’ excellent Charley’s War.
Anonymous

This is interesting because I just this weekend finished reading “A Yankee in the Trenches” by R. Derby Holmes. This WW1 memoir was written and published during the war and pulls no punches. I found it on Project Gutenberg for free and I’m extremely happy I did.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13279
Anonymous

Tardi…

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/12/luc-bessons-steampun.html

…a time machine? :)
MooseDesign

Looks great… I chuckled at the “…the trenches are better organized, because they’re German”
- Marja
  
  The French high command believed that properly-organized trenches would dull the offensive spirit of the troops; badly-organized trenches would remind everyone that these were only temporary expedients, until they could drive the German troops out of France.
  - turn_self_off
    
    not surprised, as i recall a similar story about the paris red light district. Before ww1, it was organized with police protection of the ladies, regular medical checks and so on. Come ww1, and the british high command worried that there would be a high number of soldiers running away after a leave in paris, unless said district was closed down.
  - Anonymous
    
    Ironically, when WWII rolled around, the German high command suffered a similar bout of stupidity when they made their move on Russia. They thought they could score a quick win so they didn’t outfit their army with cold-weather gear, to keep the morale high. Oops.
JesterJoker

This could be interesting. Graphic novels could be a good way to get a whole lot more people interested in the Great War. I’ll keep an eye out for it.
igzabier

his/herstory is awesome! Is John Babcock in it? (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/02/18/war-veteran018.html)
.cbr – personally, getting a new kick from illustrated stuff on iphone now.
- igzabier
  
  John Babcock was the LAST WW1 participant(officially,though he never actually soldiered he said-so he was also a sort of a witness/historic memorist)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Babcock
RuthlessRuben

Looks awesome, though either Binet is going to go through some pretty awesome character development, or I’m not going to miss him that much.

Still, it’s depressingly close to the documentations I saw.
Anonymous

This looks interesting, but people should really read Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory to really understand the experience of the trenches.
Anonymous

I once had a Michelin guide to the French battlefields, published in the early 1920′s if I recall properly. I wish I still had it; it was a really chilling book. It included the standard “you are here” photos showing that much of the battlefield areas hadn’t yet been reclaimed by nature.

The trenches were still there, and shelled areas looked like the surface of the moon. Coupled with the guide-book style text – that relentless “and on the left here you see the only tree left standing in a two-mile radius” faux-cheery tone – it was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever read.
- Anonymous
  
  The Michelin guide is available from http://www.archive.org/details/michelinguidetob00mill
Matteus

Looks incredible. But I don’t necessarily agree that leaving out the politics and major developments is a wise idea. I mean, I’m not criticising the author of this for having told the story the way he chose to and I’m sure it’s great, but I’d really like to see an accessible account of how the political machinations behind the line impacted on the troops. I’m sure someone could do it, and it would be a useful resource because so few people nowadays know about the political background of WW1 (myself included). This is probably due to the tendency, which has been around since the trench poets, to gloss over the political element in favour of communicating the pity and horror of the troops’ daily existence. At the time this was necessary because outspoken criticism led to court-martial and writing about the lived experience was a great method for exposing to contemporary audiences (who knew more than we do about the political context than we do) just how horrific it was. But I reckon there’d be an audience today for a combination of the political and day to day strands.
Anonymous

Yes we (The US) picked that stupid little fight in the Middle East and we are still paying for it in tons of tax money and blood.

Hopefully we will learn from this mistake and get outta there soon, …a black stain on our modern history.
Anonymous

idd Charleys War is a nother amazing comic on the 1st world war, great art and stories.
MichaelWalsh

“Few people alive today are old enough to remember World War I”

Few? Probably not even that many. According to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_veterans_of_World_War_I there are 3 verified living veterans of WWI.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  That’s people who served, who were in their late teens, at least. Anyone over 100 is old enough to remember the war.
chronopsis

My wife and I made a tour of the Western Front a couple summers ago; thrilled to see an english translation of this! I wish more could see how present WW1 is in that region, the giant mine craters, bunkers and trench remains, the hundreds of military cemeteries, the unexploded munitions that still require areas to be essentially sealed off from use nearly 100 years later. Some anaglyph pix (I found it the only way to come close to conveying the scale): http://chronopsis.com/wordpress/?page_id=1307
philipb

Does anyone else see a horrible parallel between the “Great War” and the ones we are fighting today?

Idealistic young men (and women), heads filled with tub-thumping patriotism and jingoistic platitudes sent off to die for a completely meaningless cause in order to save political face? Sent to the front time & time again, finally returning home to suffer what was then referred to as “shell shock.”

And like WWI, I suspect these wars will come back to haunt us in the future just as WWII’s seeds germinated on the battlefields of Flanders.

Those who ignore history…
- Anonymous
  
  Not really. I don’t want to diminish the sacrifice of the soldiers currently. Any death is sad, but an entire generation of people were obliterated in WWI. It was industrial slaughter. Iraq and Afghanistan are not within a millionth the scale of disaster. The total number of casualties in World War I, both military and civilian, were about 37 million (16 million deaths and 21 million wounded). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
  - philipb
    
    So the fact that more soldiers died in WWI than in Iraq/Afghanistan makes the current situation OK? Personally, I believe that even one death to satisfy dubious political aims is one too many.
    - Raj77
      
      The fact that orders of magnitude more people died in WWI, to me, means that we must be extremely careful to avoid making glib, disrespectful comparisons to current events.
- biggswede
  
  “tub-thumping patriotism and jingoistic platitudes” work both ways. that was how hitler got started and it was also what stopped him. war is indeed stupid and futile, but when a bully nation picks a fight, others need to stand up and protect their citizenry and interests lest they be obliterated or assimilated against their will.
  - turn_self_off
    
    while true, what nations leaders picked a fight in the middle east?