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These New Graphic Novels Keep Military History Alive

Fresh ways of telling stories of service and sacrifice


spinner image Art from the graphic novel, Medal of Honor: Samuel Woodfill
Art from Medal of Honor: Samuel Woodfill, by Geof Isherwood.
Courtesy: Association of the United States Army

New York’s 369th Infantry — the Harlem Hellfighters— is now legendary. An all-Black regiment, it was among the most feared and highly decorated groups of soldiers in World War I, earning more than 170 Croix de Guerre medals.

But the story of the Hellfighters had been largely forgotten until novelist and comic-enthusiast Max Brooks — best known for his best-selling graphic novel “World War Z” which inspired the Hollywood zombie blockbuster — brought the 369th back to life in his 2014 graphic novel, “Harlem Hellfighters.”

“I’d been waiting for over 40 years for a Harlem Hellfighters story,” Brooks told AARP Experience Counts , explaining that he’d first heard their story from a friend as a young boy obsessed with comic books. “I’ve seen stories about the 54th Massachusetts, the Buffalo Soldiers, and the Tuskegee Airmen come, and kept thinking, where are the Harlem Hellfighters?”

In 2015, Sgt. Henry Johnson, a Hellfighter who had died in 1929 in poverty and obscurity, was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.

spinner image several people representing multiple generations smile while talking to each other at a barbecue

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Graphic novels are a powerful medium for preserving military history. The Association of United States Army (AUSA) has commissioned a series of graphic novels honoring Medal of Honor recipients, from Jacob Parrott in the Civil War to Sal Giunta in Afghanistan AUSA has hired some of the biggest names in the business, including Chuck Dixon of DC Comics and illustrator Geof Isherwood.

Isherwood told AARP Experience Counts that he was thrilled to be work with Dixon, a comic book legend, and that one of the biggest challenges was getting the small details right.

“I tried to be as accurate as I could,” Isherwood said. “If we depicted the uniforms to weapons to tanks and jets wrong, any of it, the legion of vets who read the comic would tune out. There was quite a responsibility that came with that, much more than doing what we could on any normal Marvel comic to produce professional work.”

Maximilian Uriarte, 36, a writer, illustrator and Marine combat veteran, began sketching after his first deployment to Iraq and came up with the origins of what would become “Terminal Lance” in 2010. It started as a joke but soon took off and became a cultural phenomenon.

He wanted to parlay the success of “Terminal Lance” into something bigger, which would tackle more serious issues that plagued him.

Uriarte has said that the inspiration for “The White Donkey” came from his first patrol in Iraq. “I was part of a mounted platoon (company Jump Platoon) and we were traveling down Ziodon Road southeast of Fallujah in the Ziodon region of Iraq, along the Euphrates River. It was one of my first times outside the wire ever, and I’m like scared out of my mind,” he recalled.

The platoon suddenly came to a complete halt, Uriatrte explained in a humorous story, because of a white donkey walking dead-center in the middle of the road, going in the same direction as the convoy, and with no way to get around it.

 “Here we are, five mounted vehicles, full of Marines, loaded to the teeth with every weapon you can imagine,” Uriarte laughed. “Twenty-three Marines and the full power and might of the United States military behind us, and we were brought to a screeching halt by this most benign animal — this stupid ass of an animal, this silly creature.

“I like to think it made us all look like asses that day and that image wouldn’t leave my mind.”

“The White Donkey” went on to become a New York Times bestseller.

Uriarte’s second graphic novel, “Battle Born: Lapis Lazuli," in full color, was published in 2020 . Set in Afghanistan, it tells the fictional story of a group of American troops tasked with reclaiming lapis lazuli gemstone mines from the Taliban.

The images have a manga-inspired feel and a story that is deeply real and conflicted — reflecting a level of complexity that can only be written by someone who’s lived through the experiences.

It cuts to the heart of what distinguishes today’s military graphic novels from their predecessors. The battles aren’t just action-packed renderings of heroism on the battlefield, but also the inner conflicts of troops trying to do the right thing in a world gone sideways — and the struggles they face back home once the fighting is over.

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