Abstract

This paper is taken from the findings of the AHRC collaborative research grant ‘Comics and the World Wars - a Cultural Record’ (2011-15). Having recuperated and researched some 1500 contemporary unknown or neglected strips, published by a broad array of organisations trans-nationally, a range of different techniques emerge. This includes humour that acts as a record of social movements and soldiers’ collective thinking, as expressed in their own newspapers through multi panel cartoons. These can be said to represent an early form of citizen’s journalism, simultaneously offering the researcher a barometer for contemporary popular thinking through the way that they:
- use humour as a coping mechanism, and a way to criticise authority.
- promote certain forms of behaviour and discouraged others.
- demonstrate a deliberately inclusive educational strategy for reading wartime content.
Previously neglected as a record of satirical social observation, soldiers’ humour expressed both morale-boosting and stoicism whilst also voicing concerns about daily life in cartoon form. These included complaints and feelings about officers, medical services, discomforts, food and drink, leave, military routines, and their expectations versus emerging reality. Soldiers at the various fronts tended to elevate anti-heroism in their illustrative narratives, but can it be argued that what these omit is as significant as what they mention? The comics strip/book contribution to cultural record is at its strongest with unspoken violence that reveals ‘mentalité’, and although this aspect reflects the needs of varying social organisations, e.g. boosting of morale, the comics form communicates the inadequacies of any representational strategy. Meaning is formed by the reader. This enables comics to use iconic, as opposed to representational depictions and yet still strongly relate to reality.