‘The Devil’s Children’

James LaFond reviews Normandy: A Graphic History of D-Day by Wayne Vansant

2012, Zenith Press, NY, 103 pages

Normandy is a 6 by 9 inch comic with three to five cleanly depicted scenes on each page. The lettering is something I can actually read, unlike most comics. Each pages has at least one panoramic image from margin to margin. The soldiers and officers have individualized faces presenting a wide scope of personality types and emotions.

The action is covered in fifteen chapters, from D-Day, June 6, in Second Front Now! to “Aux Barricades!” which covers the liberation of Paris. The text was well-researched, the equipment authentic and the action so realistic it was not possible to follow a set of heroes through the many engagements. Every unit of Allies or Germans are depicted in a balanced and humane fashion, from slaughtered fools, to lucky heroes and diabolical meat-makers.

Wayne Vansant demonstrates a keen appreciation of the campaign to take and breakout from Normandy, from Omaha Beach, to the Bocage, the hedgerows, Cherbourg and on toward Paris. Unit types include GIs, Canadians, Scots, Brits and even Hitler Youth among the Germans. The author manages to show war as a brutal ugly business without demeaning the combatants.

Thanks to Mescaline Franklin for the loan of this book.

(c) 2018 James LaFond