The portrayal of the American Soldier in comic books about the Vietnam War (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, University of Kassel (Anglistik/Amerikanistik Landes- und Kulturwissenschaften), course: The Vietnam War and America: Politics, Society, and Culture, language: English, abstract: In the comic series "Our Fighting Forces", the American Soldier Captain Hunter is featured in "Cold Steel for a Hot War!". The issue was published in August 1966, during the Vietnam War. Of course, you can read the comic from the perspective of young readers who desire to be entertained, but it is immensely interesting to look at the picture of American Soldiers which is conveyed by the comic, especially taking its effect on the readers into consideration.

Thus, this paper focuses on the question: How is the American Soldier in the Vietnam War portrayed in the comic? In the course of this paper I will attempt to point out why the American Society as readers should be influenced by the heroic portrayal of Captain Hunter and the positive representation of American involvement in the Vietnam War.

In order to find out how the American Soldiers are portrayed in the comic, the comic will be analyzed. The analysis focuses on the principal character Captain Hunter, but I will also take a look at the portrayal of the Vietnam War and the Vietnamese, intending to have a general idea of the entire comic and the world of Captain Hunter.

A comparison to another comic follows after the analysis. The `Nam is a different type of war comic, the portrayal of the Vietnam War is very close to the reality. The editor Larry Hama points out in the introduction, that the comic even received an award for being the "best media portrayal of the Vietnam War".

Every medium tries to deliver a message, which is also valid for comic books. For this reason, I will have a closer look at the possible influences of the comic in the next step. Here, it is essential to look at the addressees of the comic and explain the effect on the target group.