Comic review – Archie Goodwin – Landscape

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Blazing Combat - 1965 Spoiler alerts Normally if a new comic stops selling after just four issues its downfall is purely commercial and down to poor quality features or bad marketing. Blazing Combat was immensely popular and squashed despite free speech constitution concerns for its anti-war stance as the Vietnam War was beginning to turn sour. Blazing Combat stories covered many wars, from the American Civil to the Nam itself, with a quite standard war is hell message, rather than the more acceptable gung-ho triumphal victory stance of many war-comics and stories. Traders were encouraged by military pundits not to sell or circulate the comic and it soon vanished despite its early success. Landscape was seen as the story that more than any, sealed the fate of Blazing Combat. It is told over eight pages, with the tragedy of a humble peasant rice-farmer in Vietnam. His village has missed the initial ravages of war and serves as an important food source for the country. Suddenly recruiters for the Vietcong arrive, spouting propaganda, recruiting men, including the ageing farmer’s son, and promising the village their protection. However, their loud arrival attracts the Americans who indifferently firebomb the village, destroy its rice fields and kill the farmer before the war sweeps on in search of its next victims. Here is a story of ordinary people trying to mind their own business and keep out of a war that makes it impossible and tragic not to take a stand. Such sentiments were too much for the powers that be and Goodwin’s comic was crushed. The four issues that did get out are now available in a facsimile collector’s edition which is excellent reading in itself, and given the history of its totally unjust fall. Arthur Chappell