Comix Reading List #39: Vietnam Journal Book One: Indian Country

 39. VIETNAM JOURNAL BOOK ONE: INDIAN COUNTRY (Caliber Comics) Kindle

I love well written and drawn war comics, like Harvey Kurtzman's EC Comics work or Jack Jackson's historical undergrounds, so I'm undertaking an epic reread of all of Don Lomax's VIETNAM JOURNAL series which is on a similar level, in my opinion.

Don Lomax (1944-) started in EASY RIDER in 1975 (according to Leonard Rifas' interview with Lomax in THE COMICS JOURNAL #136), and continuing in the late 70s in the fading light of the undergrounds, groundlevels, and porn magazines. In the early 80s he moved around smaller independents before settling in at First Comics on backup stories "The Black Flame" and probably the least known Alan Moore series of the decade, the serial in Howard Chaykin's AMERICAN FLAGG #21-27. Then he moved to Apple Comics and the Richard Pini-edited FANTASCI where he contributed the "Captain Obese" feature. (comics.org) This brings us up to the start of VIETNAM JOURNAL and this collection.

The first four issues of the series are reprinted here, Lomax focuses on the soldiers that newspaper reporter Scott "Journal" Neithammer encounters to great effect, bringing down the jingoistic attitude of most mainstream war comics while keeping the action level high. Finally, I just love Lomax's art, while being cartoony he does an excellent job of realistically depicting weapons and backgrounds. He would have fit in well on the Kurtzman EC war books!

I just started on the second collection from Caliber Comics, so more to come...