Discussing yesterday's story. A great example of Chapman's qualities as a storyteller.
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"It's June in Korea... but don't expect pretty flowers!
They can't find the sun... because the dead are in the way!" That's the
start of the story called Battle Convoy in Battle #6. It is drawn by Russ
Heath, who depicts the action with extreme realism.
The hero of this story is corparal Hank Stern, who is stuck
being a truck driver when he want to be fighting at the front. When the
narrator warns him that being at the front is not all it's cracked up to be, he
looks straight at the reader and says: "Aw, shut-up! What are you butting
in for?!"
Is it a coincidence that the hero's name, Stern, is also the name of Harvey Kurtzman's former studio mate Charlie Stern? Probably, but worth noting anyway.
The narrator doesn't shup up, though. He tells him about the
horrors of the front line:
"Don't go shouting off your mouth like that, corporal
Stern. Yelling that you want to be in combat doesn't mean that you are a brave
man... it means you're foolish. While you are screaming to get up to the front,
every G.I. up on the line is cursing the day he was sent into combat. And they
have reason to curse... the Chinese have launched another of their vicious Jen
Hai (human sea) attacks."
He then shows the attack while quoting Lord Tennyson, John
Pierpont, General Sherman and William Shakespeare.
"But you wouldn't know about all that, corperal
Stern... because you are tucked away safely in your sack."
But Stern is a stubborn man. He wants to have a medal and
will do anything to get it. When he is asked to join a convoy of trucks to deliver
ammunition to the front, he takes first position.
The convoy leaves. "And twenty trucks loaded with
ammunition roll into the night..."
Of course, the convoy gets attacked and it all goes wrong.
Corperal Stern't truck is the only one to make it through.
He will get his medal... but it wil have to be posthumously.
2 comments:
Hello! I'm the granddaughter of Charles Stern. I came across your blog while researching one of my grandfather's comics, Mister Mystery, and I would be interested in talking to you! Take Care!
I'd love to get in touch. Did you see my other post about a story that is often said to be by him (in the Harvey Kurtzman style)? I think it's by Ross Andru and try to prove that in that post. But I'd be very very vert interested to get in touch. If only because I have been researching the Charles-William-Harvey studio they had and in the late forties their intersection with European artists. As a European comic historian I am in the unique position to have acces to the European side of this story. In fact, any pictures from that period will be in demand by several European historians, especially if it contains any of the big names that intersected with your grandfather, Krutzman, Bill Elder, John severin and even Fred Ottenheimer. Please contact me at geapelde@upcmail.nl with any questions you may have.
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