Interview with Garth Ennis: The Art of the War Story

Garth Ennis has been writing comics since 1989. Credits include Preacher, The Boys and Hitman, with successful runs on The Punisher and Fury for Marvel Comics. As well as his own war series War Stories, Battlefields, and Dreaming Eagles, he recently revived the classic British aviation character Johnny Red, and has produced two series of World of Tanks for Wargaming.net. Originally from Northern Ireland, Ennis now resides in New York City with his wife, Ruth.

It is an honor to have the opportunity to discuss comics with such a notable comics writer as Garth Ennis. Even the most casual of comics readers will recognize the name behind such big hit titles as Preacher and The Boys. For this conversation, we focus on the exciting Garth Ennis titles being published by Dead Reckoning, particularly the newly collected, The Tankies. Any writer will easily relate to what Ennis has to say about growing up reading war comics. As a child, the only comics he could access back in Belfast in the 1970s was 2000 AD, a sci-fi anthology, and Battle, a monthly collection of the best British war comics. It was there that he read Charley’s War, a collected comic strip about a boy soldier who enlisted in World War I just in time to fight in the Battle of the Somme. What really struck Ennis was the veracity of these works. These were real stories about real people. It stood in stark contrast to fantastic themes he was reading elsewhere. And it stuck by him. Like any good writer, he has essentially been recreating what had the most impact upon him as a child.

CHARLEY’S WAR

For those of you who are longtime fans as well as new fans emerging from The Boys on Amazon, Garth Ennis has so much to offer the reader in incisive and highly engaging work. Our talk, in fact, pretty much focused on the collected Tankies as there was already plenty there to cover.

Stiles, the man you want in a clutch.

We discuss the main character of Stiles, an awful little man who redeems himself over and over again by leading his men into combat. Stiles may not be likable or pleasant but he knows what can and can’t be done on the battlefield. Stiles is the man. He is not much to look at but, in the end, he wins you over by sheer determination and integrity. And Stiles is the glue that holds together the three stories in The Tankies.

The Korean War. We forget it at our own peril.

As we progressed, we turned our attention to the Korean War. I pointed out that this trilogy of war stories could have easily been all from World War II. Ennis said that, by the time he came around to writing a third Stiles story, it became imperative to do a whole separate story set during the Korean War, a war that has somehow receded into the shadows of history. It’s a sobering thought to think such a war is sort of lost to history given it really had all the factors that could have led to World War III.

THE TANKIES!

So, if you’ve read some Garth Ennis by now, I highly recommend his war stories and you will find a perfect selection of The Tankies, The Stringbags, and The Night Witches, over at Dead Reckoning.