Friday, March 8, 2013

Just like that (A perfect panel #13)

Charley’s War 
The panel where Charley reveals his mate is in the sack he is carrying 
By Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun 

Charley’s War never shied away from showing the brutal horror of World War One. Brave young men – on both sides - were torn apart by bullets and shrapnel, or drowned in filthy muck, or were executed by their own side for the most foolish of reasons.

But the terrible price paid was also visible on the face of a young man, who has just seen his best mate senselessly die, with death coming out of nowhere, reducing a man to the contents of a burlap sack.

Charley is carrying the remains of his friend in that sack, but is too weary for any grief in this panel. Ginger is just one among millions who pay the ultimate price, and all the shouting and wailing won’t change that fact. All he can do is tiredly state the obvious.

It was his mate Ginger.

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