Charley's War Vol. 1: Boy Soldier: The Definitive Collection: Volume 1

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In 2019, Pat Mills wrote a lengthy and damning post about the way Rebellion treats him and other creators. Read it yourself, but the allegations include: Using one of his books as a loss leader to launch a new series, with all the associated financial burden of that falling on the creators with no compensation; Deliberately withholding the number of units sold from creators; Rebellion taking a staggering 90% of profits from each book sold, leaving just 5% for writers and 5% for artists; That other creators are afraid to speak out because they worry that it will stop them getting work from Rebellion in the future. Last year, I chatted to Simon Ward, who edited the tenth volume of Charley’s War for Titan Books. Some quotes from the conversation were used in an article that was published in the last issue of Comic Heroes magazine. Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to present the full, unedited transcript of our conversation online in case it was of interest to comic fans generally and/or of use to scholars of comics.

Joe Colquhoun is our greatest British comic artist and – out of respect and as a tribute to him – there should be a special collection of his art, including the Second World War stories. Hartley, Matt (April 26, 2008). "Charlie Wilson's intellectual-property war". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved August 16, 2013.

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I’m sure I don’t need to point out the irony of having to talk about economic exploitation in a review of a book that is, at least in part, about the exploitation of the working class Tommy. A Sandhurst historian had insisted, with killjoy relish, that British machine gunners firing off belts of bullets to boil their tea was completely apocryphal. I paid a researcher to prove it was true (these days I try not to fall into such tedious troll traps).

A British deserter from the French Foreign Legion, Blue fled to England after surviving the hellish Battle of Verdun in 1916 in which most of his fellow Legionaries were slaughtered. Charley reluctantly helps Blue to avoid capture whilst in Britain and later encounters him again during the infamous Etaples Mutiny in 1917. Despite his misgivings over Blue's desertion, Charley cannot help but feel a kinship with him due to their common resentment of the military hierarchy and Charley's realisation that, with less fortunate circumstances, he could have easily ended up the same way.The strip followed Charley through to the end of the war and through into the invasion of Russia in 1919. However, in January 1985, Mills quit the strip before being able to complete the story (he intended the story to end in 1933, with Charley on the dole as Hitler is made Chancellor of Germany) due to a dispute over his research budget. [2] Johns, Michael (January 19, 2008). "Charlie Wilson's War Was Really America's War". Blogger . Retrieved August 20, 2013.

Pat and Joe understood that and how to give you those heart-breaking scenes. They understood how to layer the humour and the violence. I just think they had a story they knew from the beginning and knew how to communicate it. A story they wanted and needed to tell. He was a brilliantly crafted character that worked because he was based on a Lost Generation of real, courageous, straight-forward, working-class heroes’, who tragically never returned to their homes. Some of the art is on permanent display at the Tank Museum in Bovington, and the Estate has loaned art out to various events and galleries in the UK and abroad] in the past couple of yearsMills used this technique a lot. Budgie Brown is another character who does the same thing (whilst Charley and company are at Messines Ridge earlier in the Ypres battle). Brown tells Charley about conscientious objectors being tied to stakes to be used as target practice by the Germans. Charley becomes hostile and refuses to believe it but yet the narrative that accompanied the frames confirm the story is real. In this way Mills challenged the popular notion (even to this day) that a Conscientious Objector is a coward who is too scared to fight as opposed to a brave individual who will not be made to change his beliefs.

Though later parts of the story covered the Russian Civil War (and, in episodes written by Scott Goodall, the early part of the Second World War), Pat Mills has stated that Charley's story should end at the end of the First World War, [ citation needed] and this has been reflected in the collections published by Titan Comics. Pat Mills seems to drive the point home time and time again, making the usual enemies of war comics become almost allied (British and Germans) and fingers the real enemy as the ruling classes who treated the war as some kind of sport. An enemy within personified by characters such as Captain Snell, Charley’s sadistic company commander. This change in Charley is one of the keys to what makes him a great character: he learns and develops and grows as the story develops. If Captain Snell was the personification of the upper classes, then Oliver was the embodiment of the greed and profiteering during the War. He tells the judgmental Charley his life-story and they become firm friends with the common ground being the hatred of the waste of lives in France.

In reality, the ending of Charley's War was down to the poor health of Joe Colquhoun, which had already caused the strip to be delayed several weeks. Out of respect for Joe, there was no question of getting another artist to take over production, and it was felt best to simply draw it to a close. [ citation needed] Alford, Matthew (2010). Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy. London, England: Pluto Press. p.81. ISBN 9780745329833. Snell always reminds me of Julian Grenfell, the aristocratic young officer who famously wrote of the War as “An absoulute bloody picnic, great fun” and recorded the thrill of “Killing Huns with rifle at 50 yards, great sport”.