Vietnam Journal Book Three: From the Delta to Dak To

by Don Lomax

Working my way through Transfuzion's new editions of Don Lomax's classic Vietnam War comic is a treat, despite the poor production values that make the reproduction unnecessarily grainy.  In this third volume, Lomax's journalist hero, Journal, continues to have a number of adventures with the American military.

We see life on the Mekong Delta, when Journal embeds with the Mobile Riverine Force, which patrolled the reeds looking to disrupt VC activity.  We also join American forces in a desperate attempt to hold, and ultimately give up a nameless hill in the jungle.

As usual, the character of Journal takes more risks and liberties than any journalist covering the war would have been able to do.  He is first to volunteer to rescue the injured, and also goes against command in his desire to help bring what he believes to be the family of a dead Vietnamese contact back to base (of course, they end up having VC sympathies).  While credulity is frequently stretched, it is done with the intent of providing new entry points or perspectives into the war, so it's all good.

This book is very readable.  I find it hard to put these comics down, even despite the production issues.

Vietnam Journal Book Two: The Iron Triangle

by Don Lomax

I'm really happy to see that Transfuzion Publishing picked up Vietnam Journal, after previous publisher iBooks fell apart after Byron Preiss's death scuttled plans at that company.  I've become a big fan of Lomax's approach to depicting war, both in Vietnam Journal and in his later Desert Storm Journal.

This second volume contains two comics that were in the first iBooks edition, and two comics that weren't, so in the interest of being a completest, I figured I'd start my acquiring of this series with The Iron Triangle.  Before I can even begin to talk about the content of this comic, I need to take a few moments to complain about the printing quality of this book.

Were someone to tell me that I was reading a samizdat photocopy of the original comic, I wouldn't be surprised.  The grays in this comic are almost completely washed out, and Lomax's line work, which looked so good in the iBooks edition, is faded and blurry.  It doesn't detract to the point of making the book hard to read, but it is noticeable, and when I compared this edition to the same pages in the other edition I own, it reminded me of when I got my first pair of glasses at sixteen, and realized that trees had individual leaves instead of masses of undifferentiated green.

I can understand how a small press project like this may not receive the best quality reproduction due to financial matters, but if someone is paying $18 for four comics, things should look better than this.  I'm just saying...

Content-wise, this stuff is fantastic.  It feels like Lomax really starts to hit his stride as a writer with this volume, avoiding some of the easy sentimentality of his earlier issues, and starting to tackle some much more complex issues and facets of the war.  He has his embedded journalist, 'Journal' Neithammer become much more involved in the war in these issues, making the conscious decision to return enemy fire while in a helicopter that is under attack in one issue, and risking his own safety to rescue civilians in another.

Journal receives some injuries during an attack at one point, and the effect of these injuries are explored for a while.  This book is quite cerebral in its treatment of the war, and makes a serious effort to provide a balanced view of what was going on.  Highly recommended, even with it's printing quality issues.

Vietnam Journal

by Don Lomax

I love a good war comic, and Don Lomax excels at the genre.  He is a veteran of the Vietnam War, who began writing about it in comics in the 1980s with his Vietnam Journal series.  This graphic novel, published in 2003, collects some of the issues of that comic, although I'm not really able to tell which ones.  I know that Transfuzion Publishing is currently reprinting the whole series; I'm going to guess that this book contains the contents of the first two of the Transfuzion books, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, Vietnam Journal is about a journalist, Scott Neithammer, called Journal by the troops, who is reporting on the Vietnam war, having embedded himself with a group of front-line soldiers.  The stories in this comic are the standard, grounds-eye view of war tales we've come to expect from good war comics.  Lomax, and Journal, are prone to sentimentality at times (such as in the first story, which talks about a 'lucky' field jacket), but they also never shy away from some of the darker aspects, and decisions, of warfare.

At the core of this book is Journal's respect and regard of the troops.  It's central to how the character interacts with them, and in his willingness to pick up a gun or do anything else necessary to help out when they're in a tight spot.

Lomax's art is dense and detailed.  He has a good eye for military equipment, and for human facial expressions.  This is a very enjoyable read.