Image Comics announced that the upcoming military anthology, True War Stories—edited by bestselling comic book writer Alex De Campi and Iraq War veteran, Khai Krumbhaar, and with art from Peter Krause, PJ Holden, Skylar Patridge, Dave Acosta, and more—will hit shelves in April from Image Comics. It will feature new design touches, new cover art by Richard Johnson/Newsillustrator, and be available in trade paperback.
Proceeds from the book will be donated to service-related charities chosen by the contributors as being personally meaningful to them: Objective Zero Foundation, Air Force Assistance Fund, the USO, Armed Services Arts Partnership, Paws & Effect, and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
True War Stories collects 15 true tales of American service people overseas and brings them to life in sequential storytelling form. They range from hilarious and heartwarming to heroic and sobering.
It focuses on the individual experience of people on deployment: the stories they want to tell. Nearly every branch of the military is represented, and the stories are told by a mixture of active duty and retired soldiers. This isn’t about politics or American foreign policy, it’s about the people in uniform who tend to get forgotten in all that.
“This book grew from an inappropriate story I told a then-stranger while visiting the same friend into a gloriously chaotic reflection of military life as it actually is,” said Krumbhaar. “Seeing Image release it—and with a digital edition!—warms the cockles of my cold dead heart.”
De Campi added: “We were in an airport coming back from San Diego Comic-con when Khai told me the rat story, and I was like ‘why aren’t we making war comics—an eternally popular sequential genre—about this?!’ And it took us a bunch of years, but we did. Along the way making a ton of new friends, hearing two hilarious poop stories (every soldier has a poop story, trust), and kind of being the catalyst for some wonderful things happening, like Skye drawing her father’s story, and Dave Acosta asking if we’ll do a sequel so he can draw his father’s story. Please buy lots of copies of this book (it makes an amazing gift and a great first graphic novel) so we can do that sequel, yeah?”
The tales include that of Vietcong sappers who attack a fuel point—only to be foiled by a very alert German Shepherd, a young Airman coping with post 9/11 paranoia in Okinawa, a team of SEALs rescue a kidnapped girl in the Philippines, Army interpreters in Iraq battle their toughest foe: the rats infesting Saddam’s palace, and more.
True War Stories trade paperback will be available at local comic book shops on Wednesday, April 30 and bookstores on Tuesday, May 6. True War Stories will also be available across many digital platforms, including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.
