Panel Borders and other podcasts

Panel Borders and other podcasts

Podcasts, radio shows, writing and more by Alex Fitch

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Panel Borders: Exploring War in popular comics

September 8, 2011 —

Exploring War in popular comics

Partially broadcast 08/09/11 on Resonance FM

Doonesbury, Martin Baker and Roger Sabin at the Imperial War Museum / Commando livery outside the National Army museum

Doonesbury, Martin Baker and Roger Sabin at the Imperial War Museum / Commando livery outside the National Army museum

Continuing our month of shows about war comics, Panel Borders is pleased to present a selection of interviews recorded at the launch of “Draw your Weapons – the art of Commando comics”, a new exhibition at the National Army Museum in Chelsea, as Alex Fitch talks to curator Robert Fleming, current Commando editor Calum Laird, and former editor George Low about the history of the comic and the art on display at the museum. Also in another recording taken from last month’s ‘Comics and conflicts’ festival at the Imperial War Museum, Roger Sabin and Martin Barker give a presentation about the depiction of the Iraq war and PTSD in the US comic strip Doonesbury.

Please note: Martin and Roger’s presentation contains strong language and challenging ideas, so we recommend younger listeners (or parents who share the podcast with younger listeners) stop playback of the podcast after the Commando interviews.

For more info and a variety of formats you can stream or listen to this podcast in, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: Buy A ‘Toxic Genre’: The Iraq War Films by Martin Baker, Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art by Roger Sabin,
The Doonesbury trilogy: The Long Road Home, The War within and Signature Wound,
Commando: 50 Years – A Home for Heroes, Rogue Raiders, Achtung! and Scramble!: The Ten Best Battle of Britain Comic Books Ever! from amazon.co.uk

Commando website
More info about Draw your Weapons – 50 years of Commando comics at the National Army Museum
Comics and Conflicts at the Imperial War museum
Listen to last week’s War comics show: Garth Ennis’ Battlefields

What do you think?

Please keep your comments polite and on-topic.

comments

Great podcast as usual, I was particularly interested in the talk about Doonesbury! First of all its both inspiring and a great example of how well a medium can build up a story, that Doonesbury made such an impact on people. Some really nice points about the effectve techniques used in comics to tell a good story :)
The other thing that really struck me was Martin and Roger’s ideas around PTSD, which I disagreed with. They didn’t maybe go enough into it, but I got the impression that the two didn’t fully understand how it is you define PTSD, and how therapists/doctors use that definition to help people who suffer from it. Of course, from what they described of Doonesbury, I also get the impression that maybe a lot of people possibly dont understand what defines PTSD either. Perhaps though I got the wrong end of the stick and they were talking about the misunderstandings of the disorder?
I was given the impression that Martin and Roger think PSTD is a term/illness used to define certain kinds of events/actions that give you anxiety. But it is actually used to define how you have learned to react in any kind of event/action.
Whatever people suffering from PTSD did in the past is only very slightly relevant to the disorder and curing it. It’s very much defined by how you are reacting NOW to situations, and becoming cured comes from re-learning to react in a way that’s normal to the environment you’re apart of now, rather then still reacting in a way one would in a more extreme environment (or the traumatic event, and thats about far as it goes into any past events with the disorder).
As far as I know, the term PTSD is used in a way so that sufferers of anxiety can identify the difference between two different ways of thinking that they have naturally learned in two extremely different situations. The definition is there not so that people can make excuses, but so that they (and doctors) can step back and understand their own thought processes more easily. If anyone begins using the term or definition as a way to excuse themselves from debates or whatever, its really the fault of the person, not the diagnostic criteria…Basically, I don’t personally think PTSD is a false diagnosis/created for bad intentions. It seems quite clear to me that if some human beings are put into an extreme environment for a long time, then they’re going to learn to react to situations with heightened senses/anxiety, and will have to re-learn to react without those heightened senses when put back into a normal environment, and thats how doctors define PTSD.

rebecca burgess (@theorah)

September 9, 2011

Dear Rebecca,

thanks for your comments. I agree with many of the points you’ve raised, which is why I included the disclaimer in the podcast. I think that the next time Martin & Roger do their talk, it would be very useful for them to have a psychologist on stage also, to argue with / qualify some of their points in context. I don’t know a huge amount about the condition and while based on anecdotal evidence, I imagine one would could find a number of cases of PTSD that aren’t ‘genuine’, that’s no reason to dismiss the condition as a whole, just because there has been some examples of misdiagnosis. Will forward your points to M & R and see if they would like to respond to your comments.

best wishes,
Alex

alexfitch

September 9, 2011

5 notes

  1. Comics podcasts | Panel Borders and other podcasts reblogged this and added:

    […] ‘City of Abacus’ (Feat. V.V. Brown, David Allain, Lee O’Connor, John Spelling) ‘Commando’ at the National Army Museum (Feat. Callum Laird, Robert Fleming and George Low) ‘Dan Dare’ (Garry Leach, Rian […]

  2. Today’s show: Action – The Story of a Violent Comic | Panel Borders and other podcasts reblogged this and added:

    […] discussion with McCarthy, Milligan and Ewins about 2000AD and interviews with Pat Mills Martin Barker and Roger Sabin’s discussion of Doonesbury at the Imperial War Museum Graphic Brighton website Cine-Excess […]

  3. Panel Borders: Action – The Story of a Violent Comic | Panel Borders and other podcasts reblogged this and added:

    […] discussion with McCarthy, Milligan and Ewins about 2000AD and interviews with Pat Mills Martin Barker and Roger Sabin’s discussion of Doonesbury at the Imperial War Museum Graphic Brighton website Cine-Excess […]

  4. Next week’s show: Nineteenth Century Comics | Panel Borders and other podcasts reblogged this and added:

    […] Links: Buy The Goat Getters: Jack Johnson, the Fight of the Century, and How a Bunch of Raucous Cartoonists Reinvented Comics by Eddie Campbell and Producing Mass Entertainment: The Serial Life of the Yellow Kid by Christian Meyerfrom amazon.co.uk Eddie Campbell and Simon Grennan websites More info on Marie Duval from Myriad Editions Buy Drawing in Drag by Marie Duval by Simon Grennan from BookWorks Wikipedia pages on The Yellow Kid and Marie Duval University pages on Christina Meyer and Roger Sabin Previous episodes featuring Eddie Cambell and Roger Sabin […]

  5. Panel Borders: Nineteenth Century Comics | Panel Borders and other podcasts reblogged this and added:

    […] Links: Buy The Goat Getters: Jack Johnson, the Fight of the Century, and How a Bunch of Raucous Cartoonists Reinvented Comics by Eddie Campbell and Producing Mass Entertainment: The Serial Life of the Yellow Kid by Christian Meyerfrom amazon.co.uk Eddie Campbell and Simon Grennan websites More info on Marie Duval from Myriad Editions Buy Drawing in Drag by Marie Duval by Simon Grennan from BookWorks Wikipedia pages on The Yellow Kid and Marie Duval University pages on Christina Meyer and Roger Sabin Previous episodes featuring Eddie Cambell and Roger Sabin […]