It was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi (2010)
Requirements: CBR Reader, 221 MB.
Overview: Heavily researched and meticulously drawn, this WWI graphic novel focuses on the day to day lives of the ordinary men in the trenches. Exceedingly factual and realistic, it is often based off of real-world accounts and stories. It is usually compared to Maus, but instead concerns WWI, is non-linear and utilizes an ever-changing human cast. He explores various issues relating to the war through his use of non-linear character vignettes.
- World War I, that awful, gaping wound in the history of Europe, has long been an obsession of Jacques Tardi’s. (His very first—rejected—comics story dealt with the subject, as does his most recent work, the two-volume Putain de Guerre.) But It Was the War of the trenches is Tardi’s defining, masterful statement on the subject, a graphic novel that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
Tardi is not interested in the national politics, the strategies, or the battles. Like Remarque, he focuses on the day to day of the grunts in the trenches, and, with icy, controlled fury and disgust, with sardonic yet deeply sympathetic narration, he brings that existence alive as no one has before or since. Yet he also delves deeply into the underlying causes of the war, the madness, the cynical political exploitation of patriotism. And in a final, heartbreaking coda, Tardi grimly itemizes the ghastly human cost of the war, and lays out the future 20th century conflicts, all of which seem to spring from this global burst of insanity.
Trenches features some of Tardi’s most stunning artwork. Rendered in an inhabitually lush illustrative style, inspired both by abundant photographic documentation and classic American war comics, augmented by a sophisticated, gorgeous use of Craftint tones, Trenches is somehow simultaneously atypical and a perfect encapsulation of Tardi’s mature style. It is the indisputable centerpiece of Tardi’s oeuvre.
It Was the War of the Trenches has been an object of fascination for North American publishers: RAW published a chapter in the early 1980s, and Drawn and Quarterly magazine serialized a few more in the 1990s. But only a small fraction of Trenches has ever been made available to the English speaking public (in now out of print publications); the Fantagraphics edition, the third in an ongoing collection of the works of this great master, finally remedies this situation.
- 2011 Eisner Award Winner: Best Reality-Based Work and Best U.S. Edition of International Material
2011 Harvey Award Nominee: Best American Edition of Foreign Material
One of Booklist’s Top 10 Adult Graphic Novels for 2010
One of Library Journal’s Best Graphic Novels 2010
Named Best Graphic Novel of 2010 by Joe McCulloch (Comics Comics, Jog – The Blog) at Flashlight Worthy
Named to numerous "Best of 2010" lists including the Austin American-Statesman’s Best Comics and Graphic Novels of 2010, NPR’s Most Memorable Comics & Graphic Novels of 2010, Robot 6, Comic Book Resources, Rob Clough’s Top 50 Books of 2010 at High-Low, Seen, The SF Site: Nexus Graphica, comiXology, The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log, Memories Fade, and Ambrosia (Brazil)
Listed as a favorite comic of 2010 by Dan Nadel in a survey of comics creators at Robot 6
Genre: Comics, European Comics, Fiction, Action, Classic, Slice of Life, War, One-Shot.
It Was the War of the Trenches / C’était la guerre des tranchées
- Jacques Tardi art, pencils, story, writer
Kim Thompson editor, translation
Paul Baresh production
Published by Fantagraphics, 2010. 120 pages.
- “‘The war to end all wars’ has become a magisterial comic book to end all comic books. I seldom give blurbs, but this book is an essential classic. Among all of Jacques Tardi’s towering achievements as a comics artist, nothing looms larger than this devastating crater of a work. It’s a compulsively readable wail of Existential despair, a kaleidoscope of war’s dehumanizing brutality and of Everyman’s suffering, as well as a deadpan masterpiece of the darkest black humor. The richly composed and obsessively researched drawings — perfectly poised between cartoon and illustration — march to the relentless beats of Tardi’s three horizontal panels per page to dig a hole deep inside your brain. This is one Hell of a book.” —Art Spiegelman
"Tardi’s depiction of the First World War is so impassioned and visceral that it can be compared to the work of the artists who actually served in the trenches." – Joe Sacco
About author:
- Jacques Tardi is a French comics artist, born 30 August 1946 in Valence, Drôme. He is often credited solely as Tardi.
Tardi has produced many antiwar graphic novels and comics, mainly focusing on the collective European trauma of the First World War, and the pitfalls of patriotism spawned several albums (Adieu Brindavoine, C’était la guerre des tranchées, Le trou d’obus, Putain de Guerre…). His grandfather’s involvement in the day-to-day horrors of trench warfare, seems to have had a deep influence to his artistic expression. He also completed a four-volume series on the Paris Commune, Le cri du peuple.
Many of Tardi’s books are published by Fantagraphics Books, edited and translated by Fantagraphics’ co-founder Kim Thompson. Books published by Fantagraphics include West Coast Blues (Le Petit bleu de la côte ouest), You Are There (Ici Même), It Was the War of the Trenches (C’était la guerre des tranchées), Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot (La Position du tireur couché) and The Arctic Marauder (Le Démon des glaces). Four books, including two albums collecting the first four Adele Blanc-Sec volumes, were previously published by NBM Publishing, the previous rightsholder to Tardi’s works.
In January 2013, Tardi was nominated as a Chevalier in France’s Legion of Honour, the country’s highest distinction. However, he turned down the distinction, citing that he will "remain a free man and not be held hostage by any power whatsoever."
Note: If you like the book, Please support both the author and publisher by buying It was the War of the Trenches from Fantagraphics. Many Thanks.
Download Instructions:
http://gestyy.com/wLEwn3 — It was the War of the Trenches (2010)
Mirror:
http://novafile.com/93n3xrekvjq5 — It was the War of the Trenches (2010)
http://gestyy.com/wLEwn6 — It was the War of the Trenches (2010)
