As publishers beat a rapid advance to the doors of the WW1 anthology, ‘To End All Wars’, those contributors that can are being asked to double-time on producing sample pages of finished art. This is page 12 from 14 of ‘The Iron Dice’ by Brick, a story that puts the Kaiser, Tsar, Emperor, Archduke and Lord Grey on trial at The Hague for the crime of starting the war. Their inquisitor is Svejk, the eponymous hero of ‘The Good Soldier…’, whose story is incomplete in the book. Here he re-emerges as a more sombre character, maimed and battered by the war, and not a little long-sighted. The court is staffed by victims of the war, and the public gallery is occupied by a flow of casualties.
Beneath it are Sarah Jones’ pencil thumbnails for ‘Die and Become’, a story I’ve written about the German artist Otto Dix and his incredible Der Krieg series of etchings. Based on his horrific experiences at both fronts and the Spring Offensive, they far outstrip anything produced by official war artists, and stand head and shoulders above Goya’s Disasters of War. Dix suffered serial attacks of PTSD after the war, and Sarah’s visualisation of one of these horrific attacks is shaping up to be a visual treat. In my story, the episode acts as a link between a glimpse of Dix’s life in the trenches and life as a struggling artist in the 1920s.
