World War II File

art, lit, flix, media

SGT Rock (Between Hell and a Hard Place, 2004)

Posted by Bryan H on July 2nd, 2009

hh3Man, this one fell into my lap, as in “hey, you want this?”

“Sure,” I said.  Nice.

Between Hell and a Hard Place is a Hurtgen forest tale, and more than anything else, it’s a murder mystery. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this.

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Joe Kubert (longtime ROCK keeper)

Let’s get to it: the story was engaging enough, though it lagged in spots. But the overall pacing of the narrative kept things from bogging down. Just when things start to slow a little, “BLAM!” Azzarello picks things up.   B+

I liked how the art was as close to black and white as it could be, yet there is enough color to show the nuance in a frame. The example here shows this, especially where Rock is leading a group of prisoners back to camp. Bits of red, green, and brown rise to the surface against a largely black backdrop.   This is the work of an artist at the top of his game. No question:   A

A few reviews are here…take’m or leave’m.

http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/features/sgtrock_hell/
http://comics.ign.com/articles/673/673176p1.html
http://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2009/03/sgt-rock-between-hell-and-hard-place.html
http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/079_kubert/079_kubert.htm

2 Responses to “SGT Rock (Between Hell and a Hard Place, 2004)”

  1. HappinessIsaWarmGun Says:

    Very nice database / blog. Continued good luck with it.

    I notice you have a rather eclectic set of categories (which is cool). However, since you’re covering things like “movies”, “tv shows” and “SGT.Rock” I think it is not out-of-line to suggest you’re missing a really significant category:

    Computer and Video Games

    Medal of Honor
    Call of Duty
    Battlefield 1942
    Day of Defeat
    Brothers In Arms
    Hidden and Dangerous
    Return to Castle Wolfenstein

    … to name a few of the first person shooters. There’s many many more shooters. And many more genres.

    See list

    With regard to how younger generations are now learning about WW2, I suggest that leaving out computer and video games is an enormous oversight.

    See Newsweek article

    All the best!

  2. Bryan H Says:

    I totally agree, and have played and the enjoyed Return to CW, the MoH, CoD, and Brothers in Arms titles. I just finished up Medal of Honor Heros 2 on the wii (which was just okay). There are a few VG references here, but no reviews of titles, as sadly, work keeps me from writing about _all_ the things I’d like to (dang work :) ). I did go in and create the category (gaming), which is a start. Thanks for the comment and visit to the site.

    Some links to VG work here:

    http://www.ww2db.com/ww2file/?p=661
    http://www.ww2db.com/ww2file/?p=144
    http://www.ww2db.com/ww2file/?p=239

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>