Fightin' Army
Fightin' Army is a bimonthly war comic that was published by Charlton Comics from 1956–1984. Telling fictional stories of the United States Army, it was a sister title of the other Charlton war comics Fightin' Air Force, Fightin' Marines, and Fightin' Navy.
In the late 1960s, Fightin' Army was the host of the ongoing feature "The Lonely War of Willy Schultz", written by Will Franz and illustrated by Sam Glanzman. Other notable contributors to Fightin' Army included Jon D'Agostino, Sanho Kim, Jack Keller, Rocke Mastroserio, and Warren Sattler. Don Perlin drew a majority of covers in 1972–1973. Editors Pat Masulli and George Wildman both had long tenures in charge of the title.
Publication history
As with many comic book titles published at the time, Fightin' Army did not start with issue number one; it was a renaming of a series called Soldier and Marine Comics, which published five issues, numbered #99–69, from Dec. 1954 - Aug. 1959.The title became Fightin' Army with issue #15, published in January 1956. Early issues of Fightin' Army sported such taglines as "Breathtaking Action Stories", "Action Packed Battle Stories", "Thrill Packed Combat", and "Rip-Snorting Combat Tales". Issues #120 – #126 featured painted covers.
Like the entire Charlton line, Fightin' Army went on a publishing hiatus between January and August 1969, issues #126 and #127. From issue #132 onward, Fightin' Army was primarily a reprint title, mostly using material from earlier issues, as well as the 1963–1970 Charlton title Army War Heroes. Fightin' Army ran through issue #173, publishing a total of 157 issues.
Features
The Fightin' Army letter column was called "Weapons, Wars, and Wisdom". Reader letters were answered by the fictional "General Knowett".The bulk of the stories in Fightin' Army take place during World War II, but as the series moved along, more were set during the Korean War. The Vietnam War was only rarely featured, and only made the cover of two issues, #65 and #135.