Making the most of classic War Comics

Carroll and Graf (the same publishing house of critically acclaimed The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga) releases The Mammoth Book of Best War Comics this month and the news has been picked up by several sites, including Releases de Neorama (part of the wider Neorama dos Quadrinhos, the widest 9th art newsletter in the world), delighted that three top Croatian artists are featured and describing the book as "a great jewel that must be read by many people far away from 'fandom'."

Comprising 26 self contained stories from American, British, Japanese, German, Russian and Croatian writers and artists, "It's the kind of book that merits to be shown to every kind of readers," the blog declares.

"The least informed people in Ninth Art themes may easily perceive that The Mammoth Book of Best War Comics is not a compilation about violence, but a large showcase for the general public on how the Ninth Art is able to express this kind of facts. Especially by including creators like Will Eisner, Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman and Keiji Nakazawa."

Three Croatian comics masters are included in the collection: Darko Macan, Edvin Biuković and Danijel Žeželj.

Over on Gad Sir! Comics! blog, Steve Flanagan reviews the new title by saying reproduction is generally good, but some of the material originally intended for US magazines or British half-tabloids suffers from reduction," and notes that despite its 500-page extent, "the main mode of war comics omitted... is what you might call the “war is fun” school, exemplified by Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos in the US and Captain Hurricane in Britain."

Several publishers are also not represented, presumably because they were unwilling to have their stories reprinted.

The Mammoth Book of Best War Comics, edited by David Kendall, is on sale from 28 August.

• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk
• Buy it from Amazon.com