War Picture Library
| War Picture Library | |
|---|---|
Cover to War Picture Library No. 1 – "Fight Back to Dunkirk," 1 September 1958.
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | IPC Magazines, Amalgamated Press/Fleetway Publications |
| Schedule | Bi-monthly/Weekly |
| Format | Ongoing series |
| Genre | |
| Publication date | Sep 1958 to Dec 1984 |
| Number of issues | 2,103 |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Various |
| Artist(s) | Various; including F. Solano López, Jose Ortiz, Ramon de la Fuente, Luis Ramos and Hugo Pratt, Faruk Geç |
| Collected editions | |
| Unleash Hell | |
| Against All Odds | |
| Up and at 'em! | |
War Picture Library was a British 64-page Pocket library war comic magazine title published by Amalgamated Press/Fleetway (now owned by IPC Magazines) for 2103 issues. Each issue featured a complete story, beginning on 1 September 1958 with "Fight Back to Dunkirk" and finishing 26 years later with "Wings of the Fleet" (3 December 1984). The Editor was Ted Bensberg. Assistant Editors included Geoff Kemp and Brian Smith. Other editorial staff included Pat Brookman, Terence Magee, Clive Ranger, Tony Power and Clive McGee. Art Editor was Mike Jones and Art Assistant was his brother Dave Jones.
Companion titles Air Ace Picture Library (1960–1970) and Action Picture Library (1969–1970) were both folded into the longer-running War Picture Library in later years.
Launched in September, 1958, the Amalgamated Press/Fleetway title War Picture Library was one of the earliest (arguably the earliest) "pocket library" titles, and in particular one of the first to feature stories set during World War II. Comprising 64-pages, the tales were, according to Steve Holland "page turner[s] of the first order, a shilling shocker that grabbed [the] attention" of a – primarily – young audience. Written and illustrated, at least in early years, "by creators who had lived through the war themselves, many on the front line," War Picture Library was able to show clearly to its target audience "what [the reader's] fathers and uncles had been through in combat."War Picture Library brought the Second World War to life "[i]n all its grim glory," according to writer and editor Steve Holland.
The stories were not limited to tales of combat, some set in "the bomb-torn streets of London during the blitz," although the bulk of the stories released several times a month for over two thousand issues were set in all fields of combat. Crucially, reflecting the cultural shifts in popular fiction, the war stories did not always feature "a heroic journey," nor yet were all characters automatically "gung-ho" stereotypes: "[a] diversity of characters," human emotion and even some considerable sympathy for 'the enemy' was not out-of-place in some tales.
Running until late 1984, "War Picture Library was a monthly window into a six-year global storm that affected every family in Britain." The first-hand knowledge of many of its creators also enabled the stories to ring true, and disclose – in sometimes simplified, and always fictionalised terms – the truth behind the stories told in history books.
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