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Current Comic of the Month | About the Club
Horror and violence have been good to Brian Azzarello. His critically-acclaimed run on DC Comics' Hellblazer opened the door for several prominent projects, including two of the most coveted jobs in comics — writing Batman and following in the footsteps of today's superstar writers on The Authority.
War comics made Joe Kubert a legendary creator. His career (one of the most varied and prolific in comics) is heavily rooted in World War II anthologies such as Our Army at War. For all Kubert's achievements, his most popular contribution to comics mythology remains Sgt. Rock — a hard-as-stone Army Sergeant who made his first appearance in Our Army at War # 81 and eventually took over the magazine, which changed its name to Sgt. Rock with issue # 302.
Rock combined the best elements of John Wayne or Lee Marvin with a quiet, understated sense of responsibility. Rather than hunting down Nazis and avenging American honor, Rock spent the majority of World War II looking out for the men of Company E ("Easy Company"), vowing to get as many of them home alive as possible.
Sgt. Rock: Between Hell and a Hard Place is the first original hardcover graphic novel to feature Frank Rock, and the first Rock project drawn entirely by Kubert in over a decade. The story revolves around four German POWs who are slaughtered while in the custody of Easy Company. As tensions, accusations, and paranoia threaten the group, Rock must also protect them from the omnipresent dangers of war.
H&D Comic Club will meet again at 7:30pm on Thursday, January 8 (the second Thursday of the month) to discuss the graphic novel and reflect on war comics in general. Join us as we discuss:
the appeal of war comics in 1959 (when Rock made his debut)
how comics about war have changed in the last 45 years
whether Kubert's vision of Rock has changed
how this book relates to Kubert's other recent graphic novels about war, including Fax from Sarajevo and the upcoming Yossel
This is a great opportunity to sample our Comic Club program, so don't miss it! Click here for more about Sgt. Rock: Between Hell and a Hard Place.
Sgt. Rock: Between Hell and a Hard Place is available now, with a retail price of $24.95 ($19.96 when you show your HDCC membership card at the counter).
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Previous Comics of the Month:
December 2003 - Kingdom Come
November 2003 - Batman: Arkham Asylum
October 2003 - Vault of Horror, Volumes 1 and 2
September 2003 - Blankets
August 2003 - Sin City, Volume 1
July 2003 - Astro City: Life in the Big City
June 2003 - The Golden Age
May 2003 - League of Extraordinary Gentlemen