The Art of War: Comics Capture Combat and Its Aftermath

After three weeks of round the clock TV coverage of the war in Iraq, it's hard to just switch channels and get used to chuckling again at Everybody Loves Raymond. For those readers out who may want to segue from the TV war to more visual literary accounts of politics by other means, here's a list of exceptional war comics. Some are fiction and some nonfiction, but they all use the comics medium to tell terrific stories about the hellish experience of living through times of war.

VietnamJournalby Don Lomax (ibooks, April pub date): Lomax turns his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam into fictional tales of a combat journalist reporting on the War in Vietnam.

Notes of Defeatist by Joe Sacco (Fantagraphics): His collected comics (and often comical) essays on time spent thinking about and living in war torn countries by the acclaimed comics journalist and author of Palestine.

Sgt. Rock: Between Hell and A Hard Placeby Brian Azarello and Joe Kubert (DC comics, summer 2003): DC' s legendary World War II comic hero discovers the murder of four prisoners of war after the fifth has escaped. He must figure out whether the murderer is a member of his own Easy company or the escaped POW.

Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995by Joe Sacco (Fantagraphics): Sacco reports back from a trip to war torn Bosnia.

Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa (Last Gasp): An acclaimed comics novel that captures the story of one family and the horrific suffering in the aftermath of the atom bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Fax From Sarajevo by Joe Kubert (DC Comics): DC's great war cartoonist tells a true story of a close friend and fellow cartoonist trapped in the war torn city. He describes their daily life in the midst of the war and their efforts to escape.