Reading the graphic novel The Night Witches, about female pilots who flew for the Russians in World War II, I thought about Jane Austen. More specifically, I thought about Helena Kelly’s 2017 book Jane Austen: The Secret Radical, which issued an audacious call to incorporate creativity and imagination into women’s history. Noting that information about… Read more

Dead Reckoning is an imprint of the Naval Institute Press specializing in military and naval stories. Since debuting last fall they’ve released fives graphic novels (Garth Ennis’ Night Witches being the first one from their spring line-up). A few months ago I was sent a box of review copies and it’s been hanging over my head, that… Read more

2018 INDIES Finalist: Finalist, Graphic Novels & Comics (Graphic Novels & Comics). In his gritty memoir Machete Squad, Brent Dulak, along with his co-contributors, tells the story of his tour as an army medic in Afghanistan. The book’s cover, featuring Dulak wearing a skull mask and holding a syringe in his mouth, could be mistaken… Read more

A graphic novel adaptation of the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, following a young German military man through a few years of WWI. I have not read the novel on which this is based, nor have I seen the movie. I had heard of it, and had a base idea of what it was. When… Read more

Review Fix chats with “All Quiet on the Western Front” graphic novel creator Wayne Vansant, who discusses the creation of the project and why it’s an important one. Review Fix: What inspired this book? Wayne Vansant: I first saw the old 1929 version of All Quiet when I was a kid, and I remember seeing… Read more

When it comes to understanding particular wars for generations which follow, there is no better way to do so than to immerse them in the experience. With regard to World War I, a visit to the trench experience which can be had at the Imperial War Museum in London is unparalleled. Or watching the recent… Read more

94. Trench Dogs;Writer/Artist: Ian Densford; Publisher: Dead Reckoning. Trench Dogs depicts to absolute horrors of World War I. Similar to the infamous Maus it too uses anamorphic animals as a tool to showcase one of humanity’s most brutal times. Using extremely limited dialog Ian Densford allows for his imagery to do most of the talking…. Read more

It’s not surprising that “Machete Squad,” a graphic novel about Brent Dulak’s experiences as an Army combat medic in Afghanistan, would be intense. The book does have scenes that depict combat and the bloody chaos of an aid station. But just as brutal are a few pages at the beginning — the ones that show… Read more

Historical dramas with top female leads. Garth Ennis and Russ Braun, The Night Witches. Dead Reckoning, March 2019. The women who flew Soviet biplanes in extremely risky missions against the Nazis are already a historic legend, but this graphic novel approaches that history from a new angle. First, it depicts the life of a single… Read more

Machete Squad is the nonfiction account of SGT Brenton Dulak’s experiences as an Army medic in Afghanistan. The name of the graphic novel should tell enough about what kind of story lies within: though surgery is often synonymous with precision, “machete medicine” is the most that can be expected in a trauma tent in Afghanistan…. Read more