In 1965, Gold Key Comics released a book with the cover title of Ripley's Believe It or Not: True Wars Stories. It has one of those World War I planes on the cover and looks great. That is not this book. For some reason, when this comic was released in 1967, it was done as as part of another series based on the amazing world of explorer and champion of the macabre, Robert Ripley- Ripley's Believe It or Not: True Ghost Stories. This all very well may have to do with the limited number of titles the United State Postal Service aloud at the time for comics publishers in regards to first class postage.Regardless of what the issue is, there's a glowing oversight here: this book doesn't have any ghosts in it!
The opening story is set in the waning days of World War II. It tells of a Japanese commander who plans a massive attack on allied forces, even though the Emperor of Japan has declared the country's unconditional surrender. This story about honor and anger ends with that trademark Ripley's twist. But there's no spooks here.
Stories set during the two World Wars fill the rest of this book. They all contain those killer twist endings. But again, there are no ghosts in this book.
All of the stories in the book are supposedly based on real stories. I would have liked something that expounded on these facts, like a behind the scenes letter from the editor. One requirement for comics to meet first class mailing was to include a prose story of at least 1 page in the contents. This book fills that requirement with 'The General Was a Spy'. Surely, a page or two digging deep into the facts behind all of these war stories would have counted as that prose requirement.
Though credits still weren't a common occurrence in comics yet, experts have determined that Sal Trapani, Andre LeBlanc and Joe Certa were the artists of these stories. Oddly enough, the artwork looked consistent throughout, as done by just one hand. That's the most Believe It or Not thing about this book.
A good collection of strange events in the history of warfare. Whether these were 100% factual or just based on anecdote is something I feel is missing from this book. But I enjoyed the read and I thought the artwork was amazing. But for the life of me, I just don't understand why this book is labelled and categorized as it is.
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.
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