10/13/08
Text: Nik Mercer
Plot-driven wartime narratives―whether filmic or literary in nature―are too easy to make really boring and to completely screw up. See, the problem is that war itself is a tough thing to talk about and reflect on. Most of us agree with the general underlying notion of war being innately wrong, or at least wrong in "most circumstances." On top of that, most of us perceive wars of this nation's past to be bad things... so having both points continually hammered into our heads by the likes of Clint Eastwood, Stephen E. Ambrose, or James Bradley gets a little tiresome. We sort of get the picture, and while learning more and more about the U.S.'s past is absolutely of great importance, it's like sitting through high school history lessons on repeat.
So, it was with some hesitation that we considered First Second Books' forthcoming graphic memoir, Alan's War. The three-hundred-page tome is quite incredible, though. It follows―almost entirely―the journey of the young Alan Cope, a G.I. who was drafted at the tender age of 18. Cope had an incredibly "healthy" outlook on WWII: it was his job, and while the Californian native was a self-described "dreamer," not necessarily made for combat, he wound up enjoying the experiences he had throughout his career. He made good friends, learned valuable skills, became a pro at certain tasks, learned to drive a tank and a jeep, and actually ended up residing in Germany and France for the remained of his life (he died at 74 in 1999, a year before the first story from Alan's War was serialized).
The memoir was illustrated, constructed, and edited by Emmanuel Guibert, a cartoonist who serendipitously met and befriended Cope in the early-1990s. After realizing Cope's uncanny storytelling abilities, Guibert suggested "doing some books" with the aging retired soldier. Five years of Cope's war stories ensued, and Alan's War is a mostly chronological rendering of those tales. Assumedly, the entire book is Cope's transcribed stories, strung together by beautiful drawings and comic book layouts. Anthem highly recommends the volume―unlike too many WWII memoirs, novels, short stories, or films, Alan's War is refreshingly distant from the obvious cruelties of war yet especially educational and informative (this writer learned more about the inner-workings of the military and WWII than he ever has before in one sitting).
