Preview: ‘Sarge’ Volume 2 — More Classic Battle Strips Get The Collection Love

More classic Brit Comics reprints as we continue the WWII action with Gerry Finley-Day and Mike Western, as the Sarge leads his boys into more action.

.

These Treasury of British Comics collections are a real treat, uncovering hidden gems and forgotten bits of greatness. Sure, if you were around at the time and loved Battle, this will be old news that strips like The Sarge are gold, but for those of us who missed out (and those who remember fondly but don’t have the comics anymore) it’s a great opportunity to (re)discover something really good.

The Sarge is simple. You’ve got a British infantry section fighting in WWII, led by Sergeant Jim Masters, the man whose job it is to keep these poor young bastards alive, whether it’s at Dunkirk, North Africa, or, in this volume, in the Italian campaign. The Sarge leads them into battle, usually with a pipe in his mouth, doing him damndest to keep them all in one piece.

.

Like Garth Ennis says in his introduction, what could have been this gung-ho thing becomes something so much better because of the obvious skills of Finley-Day and Western.

‘The trick Finley-Day employs (and this is a lesson I took to heart) is not new, but he plays it extremely well: create a team of characters, develop them, get the audience used to them, and then steadily knock them off for maximum emotional effect. Easy, right? But it isn’t. It takes genuine narrative skill. It only works if the characters are likeable. And likeable this bunch certainly are.

‘What this strip is first and foremost is a character piece, and as such it succeeds admirably. Gerry Finley-Day’s flights of fancy pale into insignificance next to the saga of Jim Masters and his section, the men he got us to care about as they trudged
onwards through the rain and the dust, the bullets and shells. In this he’s aided and abetted by the superb Mike Western, whose faces and figures perfectly convey the hard, dangerous toil our heroes face on the trail.’

He’s so right in all of that. You get to like them all, experiencing the war through their eyes, and even though you know you’re being manipulated by the writer every time one of them gets killed, it’s still something that gets to you, such is the greatness of the writing.

.

And of course, it looks quite bloody lovely. Western’s art is just so good, a genuine great of Brit comics, solid as anything but with such an eye for detail, completely expressive, loaded with character, with those packed layouts demanded from a strip with just three pages a week just delivering action and intensity and sheer invention to convey everything it needed, page after page, week after week.

Sure, like I said with the first volume, this isn’t one to read for historical accuracy or battlefield realism. It’s not that sort of strip. But it is a damn fine war comic that will have you rooting for The Sarge’s boys, thrilling to whatever (often ridiculous) way he gets them out of trouble, and feeling robbed as Finley-Day slowly gets rid of your favourites.

Yes, The Sarge is another example of the sort of classic Brit strip that doesn’t get the credit it deserves, a masterclass of story and art in synergy to elevate the genre.

.

Here’s the Treasury PR for this one…

“Some men are born leaders – men like Jim Masters!

Italy, 1943. British sergeant Jim Masters and his section face brutal opposition from the German army. At the same time, Masters must motivate his men and ensure that each individual soldier is prepared for the increasing threat from the enemy – a difficult task as the section now has a lot of inexperienced soldiers amongst its ranks.

From marauding Tiger tanks to suspicious American paratroopers, this volume includes the final work on the strip by its co-creators Gerry-Finley Day and Mike Western.”

.

The Sarge Volume 2

Written by Gerry Finley-Day

Art by Mike Western.

Contains strips originally printed in Battle between 1st April 1978 – 16th December 1978.
The Sarge strip originally printed in the Battle Action Special (2022).

Collection published by Rebellion & The Treasury of British Comics on 25th September 2024

.

Okay then, time for a preview and the first few adventures in this volume…