For artist Don Lomax, the 1980s were a chance for him to show comic book readers what the Vietnam War was really like. Lomax was drafted into the Army in 1965. A year later, he was sent to Vietnam with his unit, the 98th Light Equipment Maintenance Company, conducting a series of odd-job missions along the Cha Rang Valley. During this time, Lomax would sketch out the villagers, soldiers and equipment he came into contact with, thinking all the time "This would make a great comic." However, it would be almost 2 decades before any comic book publisher would agree to any such project.
The Vietnam War had left a giant wound on the United States. It was a very unpopular war that saw many of the veterans returning from Southeast Asia not getting the warm welcome of their grandparents from their time in Korea and Japan in the decades prior. Only a small number of movies even attempted to focus on the war in the 1970s and most film experts would agree that a majority of those films were anti-war pictures. With films like 1985's Rambo: First Blood, Part 2 making American's feeling a sort of pride about our involvement in Vietnam again, the barometer was starting to shift in Don Lomax's favor in order to see his Vietnam comic dreams become a reality.
In 1987, Lomax pitched his project to Apple Comics editor Michael Catron. Issue #1 debuted that fall. It introduces readers to the main character of Scott Neithammer, a war correspondent who has traded covering the conflict from the perspective of officials at the Pentagon to digging into the trenches with the soldiers stationed near Plieku. Lomax could have told the war from his perspective. He had hundreds of stories and sketches from his time in Asia. However, by adding 'Journal' Neithammer to the action, the character acts as a link between the reader and the G.I. to make the war more relatable to those who wouldn't understand because 'they weren't there.'
In the first issue, Journal is introduced to the men of Plieku base. Covering the action is going to be difficult as his typewriter is destroyed during a firefight when the Huey transporting the reporter lands. At evening chow, Neithammer meets some of the troops. Readers get a small background of the war prior to Neithammer's arrival when the correspondent is offered a replacement field jacket by the supply Sargent. Journal's story entertains the G.I.'s who are desperate for any sort of 'entertainment', while educating the reader about the growing anti-war sentiments brewing back in the States.
The jacket first appears in Vietnam when a Sargent on leave in the States takes it from a group of hippies burning an American flag. The clothing switches hands several times among soldiers who deem the jacket to be lucky. Ultimately, Journal ends up with the weather beaten coat after it is gifted to him by an unlucky vet who is ultimately killed by an errand brick thrown by rioting protesters at an American airport. It is Journal's hope to present the jacket to an active G.I. in need of lucky back in 'Nam.
Vietnam Journal would be published by Apple Comics for 16 issues sporadically through 1991. A few one-shots and limited series would continue the narrative before Apple Comics would declare bankruptcy in 1994. Lomax would continue the adventures of Journal Neithammer with the inclusion of several short stories in the pages of the short-lived Harvey Kurtzman's The New Two-Fisted Tales and later as a one-page strip in the adult magazine Gallery.
A little bit of a spoiler: Journal would survive his time in Vietnam, going on to Iraq to cover the invasion of Kuwait in 2004's aptly named Gulf War Journal.
Completing this review completes Task #22 (Comic Book Starting With the Letter V) of the 2024 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.
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