Tom Spurgeon looks at Alan’s War, a forthcoming graphic novel from First Second in which Emmanuel Guibert captures some of the experiences of Alan Cope, an ordinary eighteen year old American called to duty in World War Two. My bookseller’s antennae twitched when I first heard this book was coming up – there are some books and comics I just know from a glimpse that are likely to be good and I normally trust that instinct. This is one I already had down on my “I really want to read this” list and Tom’s review of it has just re-enforced that desire – I like the idea of Guibert trying to present some of Cope’s memories to us, something we need to see more of in various media because the generation who fought the Axis and essentially saved the free world for us to enjoy are passing out of living memory and to present it in such an accessible manner has to be a good thing.
I’ve often wished the adult me could go back to my childhood when I knew some elderly folks who had served during the war, so that I could try to record some of those memories; when Poppy Day comes around I often find myself thinking of them and what they might have done in their youth, what stories went with them when they left us, unrecorded. Many veterans, of course, don’t want to talk about it too much, except perhaps to fellow veterans who they know will understand. But with fewer old soldiers from that time now with us it becomes more important to preserve some of those first hand experiences and memories or risk losing them forever and in their absence only second-hand history, less humanised, more distant, less involved, or fictional histories of movies. Alan’s War will be on my must-read list.
Thu, Sep 25, 2008
Comics and cartoons