A liberal apologia for GI Joe, Part Three

[geoffsebesta]

A liberal apologia for GI Joe, part two.



GI Joe issue #4. Domestic terrorism and the honor of a soldier.





In this issue we see a cutaway of the GI Joe headquarters and the Cobra mindset. This is all about where Cobra comes from. Although they never appear specifically in this issue, it's pretty obvious that this is an affiliated training camp. The implication is that Cobra finances, and recruits from, American militia groups.





Color problem sorta messed up the zoom. Hmm, as I gaze into Clutch's eyes there I sorta question my love of Trimpe's art. Well, this is the early stuff.





Gah. You really can't get away with those top two panels any more.

Trimpe uses "artistic composition" more than "photographic composition." He orders things where they make sense on the page (and there's an awful lot of awful one-point perspective backgrounds in this issue).

The bottom panel, for example, is a series of cartoons ordered so as to be read clearly:

Big Leaf Texture #22...
words...
big red truck...
planes and hangars...
more Big Leaf...
some girders and an airplane to pull your eye back over to...
the big red truck again!


The composition does not release the eye, but draws the eye further in, exactly as if you were searching a scene yourself. Brilliant! Great composition! Photographically impossible.

Trimpe doesn't have his technique together yet, either. I think it was great for these guys that they had actual models of for everything; the toys. It accounts for some of this book's crazy, wonderful relationship with perspective and space.

Snake-Eyes has nice handwriting.



Snake-Eyes. Yeah. He's cool. Right? It's not just me?

Anyway, stuff happens, there's story and stuff...



...perhaps Snake-Eyes would explain it to us if we only knew Morse Code...





Kirby Patrol! I'm entertained by that second page. That's what I'm talking about when I mean "artist perspective," or "storytelling perspective." Not one of those panel is photographically possible, in spite of the fact that all the objects are accurately placed and in perspective with themselves. They are arranged for storytelling.



Another big difference between this and the cartoon. Those cartoon ejector seats don't get used much.

The faces here remind me of Giffen. Maybe Trimpe and Giffen have a common artistic ancestor that I'm not aware of...

Now, Hawk doesn't live quite up to his name here and does his best to avoid killing Carruthers (who does indeed die, you never see him again). Part of it is respect to a fellow vet and unwillingness to fire on an American aircraft, but...it's almost like Hawk sees a little of himself in Carruthers. They do look similar, but it's hard to tell if that's the characters or the artist. There's some interesting stuff about identity in this issue, about what a soldier is and does.



See? A soldier's duty is to protect the weak. Carruthers was a soldier who went too far, who began to fight just to fight, and not to protect. Maybe that's the difference between him and Hawk; Carruther's only interested in his own survival while Team Joe (here exemplified by Hawk (leader, fighter, jet pilot, etc.) and his dark shadow Snake Eyes) cares only for the survival of others. Joe pledges allegiance to wider concepts, which Carruthers refutes, nuclearly.

It's amazing how well the story stands up to fragmenting like this. Hama wrote each individual page as a mini-story, and it really works.

Really, really, really works.

As in, if you write comic books, you should be doing this.





Larry Hama, layin' down the information. Knowing is half the battle, I guess. Anyway, I bet most of you didn't expect that the most realistic nuclear-bomb-defusing scene that you'd ever read would be in GI Joe Comics #4.

"Lighten up on the science lecture, Zap!" he says. "M'man Grunt 'bout to save the world from glowin' in the dark!" And he does! TEAM Joe saves the day!

But as he raises the trophy in victory, a shadow falls across his face.

Also, civilians are stupid and mean.

Here is a slightly more realistic version of the same story above:

http://unnecessaryg.com/gijoe/McSweeneys%20Field%20Recordings_McSweeneys_2_Part%202%20of%208.mp3
http://unnecessaryg.com/gijoe/McSweeneys%20Field%20Recordings_McSweeneys_4_Part%204%20of%208.mp3
http://unnecessaryg.com/gijoe/McSweeneys%20Field%20Recordings_McSweeneys_8_Part%208%20of%208.mp3

Can't remember exactly where I got those or how they ended up on my computer...


So. The UN. As soon as I get back to where my library card can do some good, I promise that I'm going to check out some books on the history of the UN. Real books, with covers on them and everything. But until I've got some more research in, I hope to leave that subject alone for a bit.

Comments

[lamashtar]

Is the shadow foreshadowing?

The civilians expectations are probably accurate for towns close to bases.

'Tanks for the Memories.' Best joke ever or BEST JOKE EVER?

[geoffsebesta]

oh the Tank issue is marvelous.

Those locals are jerks because the Joes saved them from a bomb that the US military industrial complex invented and was commissioned and built and primed by rogue elements of the US military but the IMPORTANT thing is that the most recent bomb-military interaction was positive so, those locals are jerks.

[lamashtar]

Para-military and militias are civilians. Private armies, distinct from the government, with an ideology. Unless some of them are also in the regular military, they aren't rogue. They're just civilians with guns. And certainly arguable about how 'well-regulated' they are.

[geoffsebesta]

Now there is an interesting topic.

Let's take Mr. McVeigh. He was militia, of course. Because the second you leave the army you are no longer military.

The fact that he was on military bases (as a visitor or something, I have no idea why he was there) when he was part of the militia, and he had direct military support from parties is the military (and I have no idea who they were, how much they helped him, or how highly they were placed, all I'm saying is "he still had friends in the military.") is entirely irrelevant. As he was not part of a government military he was a terrorist and acting as a terrorist. All this was perfectly clear when he died, on June 11th 2001. But it becomes murky again later that same year.

Because now we designating people "enemy combatants" regardless of their affiliation or nationality. We essentially have an enemies list. Because we fighti populations who absolutely will not join a "recognized" military and put on uniforms (and not only because it would be suicide but because it's meaningless in their culture. They aren't fighting us as a military, they're fighting us as a culture. I don't mean that in any hyperbolic way, I'm analyzing technique).

So we fight "insurgents" and "enemy combatants" and, my personal favorite, "illegal combatants." I have a difficult time imagining a less meaningful phrase than "illegal combatant" but anyway. Now, how do we know who these people are? They wear no uniforms, by definition. So we identify them by their actions -- they take hostile action towards the US, either by direct attacks or supporting those who attack. It's entirely on a case-by-case basis.

This is an enemies list. The rosters of "enemy combatants" is nothing less than a large enemies list. Nationality is meaningless to this, I believe Lindh was an enemy combatant even though he's an American. It will be very interesting to see if Hasan will be tried as an enemy combatant or as a traitor. If McVeigh was around now would he be tried as an enemy combatant? How about the 9-11 conspirators in NYC? Will they be charged differently for the NYC (a civilian target) and the Pentagon (a military target)?

So, due to Bushian monkeying with the terminology, the difference between soldier and para-military and civilian has greyed out. Soldier has come to mean "American military and (practially) no other." Anyone who attacks this military is an enemy combatant. Doesn't matter where they're from or what sort of affiliation they have. These guys are no different from Cobra. Isn't that interesting?

And how does this relate to your point? Well, to say that it's all where you draw the line, and that the line has grown even murkier since this was written. These folk in this issue were clearly connected to the US Military and drew support, training, and culture from it. Obviously it's not the same. It's clearly a bad-child-of-a-"good"-father situation. Bad apples from a good tree.

Because the American military, as we all know, is "good." And no one could expect these sorts of things to happen.

As we will see as the series goes on, Cobra is a world-spanning threat that springs directly from America and the American way of life. Even in our imagination we know we are the cause of our own troubles.

[lamashtar]

You argue like Bill O'Reilly, y'know? Too much "but this is what I REALLY want to talk about."

While I can't speak for every meandering point you've gone off on, post-Bush occupation analysis reveals that Iraq would've rolled over for us, if we'd approached the conquest differently. We as a culture are not at war with Iraqi culture. Our fascist leadership managed to create the post-invasion civil war with ourselves in the hot seat, with the bonus of the extremist Islam groups trying to start trouble. (When the Iraqi villagers realized that the Iranians were behind many of their insurrections, many of them began coalescing to attack back on their own. These days, when Iraqi authorities are attacked, they bring their own CSI along with the American troops to track down the criminals.) The various actual intelligent types were trying to come together from the beginning, and have made good progress. No, its still dangerous, but life is like that.

Its perfectly possible for people with former military history and familial military connections to exist without support from the military. Most people call it being an average citizen. But unless there are military members taking off with their weapons to participate in private ideological armies, they are not rogue military. I am no longer military. If I hie off to Greece to kill Turks with my cousins, I am not going 'rogue'. A more pertinent example might be American Jews joining the Israeli army.

I wouldn't say it doesn't happen...I know American soldiers took vacations to work as mercenaries enough that the military limited the amount of vacation time you could save up. Maybe thats the way it is in this comic, I don't know. You've read it, I haven't. But the impression is one of out of shape civilians volunteering and training, not military. (And that mustachio is COMPLETELY against regulation.)

[geoffsebesta]

Ow, and I wasn't even trying to argue with you. I was more just meandering down a train of thought. I'll try to cool it down.

Your analysis of Iraq makes a lot of sense to me. But I hope we're talking about exactly the same thing -- we're treating them like criminals and not like enemy soldiers, which erases the difference between the two. This might be the face of war in the future, too. But you seem to imply that the insurgency is endable, and at at an end in Iraq. Is that true? Do you think an insurgency can be put down militarily? Now that the US is using much better methods in Iraq and Afghanistan, do you think the places will be pacified?

In your opinion, is it possible to pacify Afghanistan? I suppose you can tell from the slant of the question that I tend toward the glib answer "No," but I'd like to hear your reasons.

Ah, I see another problem glibness is causing me -- I'm using 'rogue military" incorrectly here. Good point.

You're right that Carruthers is recruiting nonmilitary personnel here; I missed that. That's interesting, and as far as I can tell completely counter to the way most militias actually operate, something I can't help but think that Hama knew. I need to reread this issue. There's something going on here.

It's interesting that Cobra has not appeared for quite some time.

That moustache is physically impossible.

[lamashtar]

I can be glib about Afghanistan too: no. We're gonna be there a long time. But think how its lowering our costs on heroin..

I think Iraq can be made as safe as the south side of Chicago...Right tribe/color/country, you're fine. But there's a world of difference between the two countries. Right now, most troops stationed in Iraq have nothing to do, so they play video games all day long. They see the occasional insurgent murder as the result of someone being stupid.

Regarding the labels...if a man shoots another man, it might be because he hates him, because the other man was threatening him, or because the damn thing went off by accident. The same act happens, but the circumstances alter our views considerably. If we shoot insurgents for sabotaging power stations, we are conquerors protecting our assets. If the Iraqi shoot insurgents with our troops for backup, we are supporting civil order. Circumstances mean a great deal.

? I thought militias were the definition of civilians carrying weapons.

By the way, I was wrong.

Special Forces are a kind of diplomat soldier. As a requirement for graduation, they have to engage in practice training of native peoples for warfare. Its called the Robin Sage exercise, and they do it in the backwoods here. Everyone involved roleplays that they are in a fictional country (and locals play along). I know guys who enjoy 'getting into character' and harassing the SF guys by sneaking away and laying around or refusing to admit they speak English. It is, however, a seriously tough exercise, and its commonplace for people to come back starving, eat a regular meal, and get sick, because their system can't take it.

I was under the impression that only military could participate as fake native recruits, and Wiki thinks so too, but someone told me today that the military will pay civilians $3000 to go through it, though they prefer friends and relatives of military members. But understand that SF training is tougher than regular basic training, which involves a lot of stupid culture crap like shortsheeting your bed. In Robin Sage, you WILL kill your food.

However, the numbers of civilians trained this way pales before the number of foreign nationals trained this way by SF--which is their primary job. It got so a Senator realized that we were training armies of assassins, with little accountability. He made the Leahy Law, which requires vetting potential trainees. The entry notes the weaknesses when someone is determined to get around it, and the bit about private citizens hiring mercernaries and owning gunships might be interesting to you. I think personally that the law is a good idea, even if it doesn't cover every loophole.

[victory_or_death]

Apparently R2D2 doubled as a nuclear bomb for Cobra...

[geoffsebesta]

There's an app for that...

[lbd_nytetrayn]

You spoke a lot about how some shots were "photographically impossible," but I don't quite understand precisely why that is.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

[geoffsebesta]

Practicality. With photoshop all things are possible, but IRL lining up the elements as he presents them would be would be well beyond daunting, into the level of "quantum miracle."

Frex, look at the last panel here:



That is a dang good panel! It could be rendered much better, true, but when you judge it by depth and storytelling it works.

It's not in perspective. Things don't converge. Now, one reason they don't fall into line is because Trimpe wasn't much into rendering. But another reason it failed is that he set himself a one heck difficult task! You are looking through trees almost directly down at some things, just grazing across others, with things grotesquely manipulated for size (like the B-29 sandwiched between a red truck and a building).

Now, you could get all this information into a photograph, especially since things are recognizable from much smaller profiles. But it would never be arranged like this. Even with models on a set you'd have an incredibly difficult time with it. Either the truck covers more of the jet or the jet covers more of the building, and I just don't know how you'd get that last plane into the frame like that unless you used severe flattening with a telephoto, in which case how are you getting the background to rise up like that? Not even mentioning how you're looking down on the tower somehow, but only grazing across the wings of the B-29s.

I hope that's a satisfying answer; I'm trying to verbalize my experience as a photographer and it's resisting verbalization. Maybe I should strike out "photographically impossible" and replace it with "I couldn't do it."

It's great cartooning though.



Panel three: How would you focus the camera here?

The whole page is loopy, mostly because things are just not in the habit of arranging themselves like that. At least my reference photographs never come out half that clever and cut-and-dried. "The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself."

[proteus_lives]

The audio files were very amusing.

[geoffsebesta]

I wish I knew who it was so I could get the rest of them.