The 'Stan is a collection of short comics about America's longest war. Individual stories highlight different perspectives--one through the eyes of a Taliban ambassador and others through the eyes of Afghan and U.S. Army soldiers--but every account highlights the human element of war. The tales in this book--based on reporting by David Axe and Kevin Knodell and drawn by artist Blue Delliquanti--are all true and took place in roughly the first decade of the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan. While the stories are from the recent past, The 'Stan is still very much about Afghanistan's and America's present--and likely their future.

The Stan

Comics & Graphic Novels

Axe, David

Knodell, Kevin

Graphic Novels

Dead Reckoning

Brent Dulak doesn't want to go to Afghanistan. Haunted by the memories of his two tours in Iraq and burnt out on soldiering, he wants nothing more than to engage in self-destructive behavior. He's a U.S. Army medic who was recently promoted to sergeant, in charge of a team of soldiers whose job it will be to patch up the wounded at a remote outpost as the Americans prepare to turn Kandahar Province over to the Afghan forces. That won't be easy: Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban. It's filled with motivated insurgents, questionable local allies, and countless ways to die. Brutally honest and darkly funny, Machete Squad is the story of a soldier trying to keep people alive as America's longest war rages all around him. He must look out for the welfare of his men and their patients even as he doubts his own abilities--and at times his sanity.

Machete Squad

Literature & Fiction

Dulak, Brent

Dramas & Plays

Inspired from assorted first-hand accounts, this fictional story of World War I is an anthropomorphic retelling of that global conflict and the soldiers who experienced the horrors of the front lines and high seas. While horse drawn carts and trains were ordinary sights, automobiles, tanks, submarines, and airplanes made their wartime debuts alongside machine guns, poison gas, and flame throwers. While the nightmares of World War I and the aftermath are sometimes forgotten, this book asks the reader to look again and remember the dead, and to weigh their number against those who would choose war. Conceived as a long, continuous camera pan through the trenches and beyond, the reader is soon buried in mud, corpses, and ruin, emerging on the other side with blurred recollections of lost comrades and a nagging sense of pointless destruction. Ian Densford's graphic watercolors paired with a spattering of onomatopoeic utterings create an unforgiving tale of the "war to end all wars."

Trench Dogs

Densford, Ian

Major General Smedley Butler is one of the most decorated Marines of all time and is a legend among the Corps. Coming from a background of privilege, he became a Marine to prove his worth. Through conflicts like the Philippine-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Banana Wars, and the War to End All Wars, he helped define what the Marine Corps is today. Smedley begins in the Summer of 1932. Butler is retired from the Marines and has lost his bid to be a Pennsylvania senator. When he is invited to speak at the Bonus Army encampment in Washington D.C., he arrives early to mingle with the other veterans, who press him for stories about his legendary exploits. How did he win his Medals of Honor? What was it like in China? Smedley is a man in his element as he recalls his toughest scrapes to an eager audience of World War I veterans, who we discover have a few war stories of their own.

SMEDLEY (Dead Reckoning)

McComsey, Jeff

A collection of the best stories from the classic run of Don Winslow of the Navy, one of the most popular comic books running during and after World War II. Edited by Craig Yoe, the selected stories are digitally remastered and contextualized with Yoe's historical research. Preceding the full, colorful tales is a detailed introduction on the creation of the adventurous Don Winslow. The character served to foster recruitment and entertain Navy personnel and the general public alike during World War II and beyond. Winslow fights the Axis and supervillains like The Snake and the attractive, but deadly, Singapore Sal.

The Best of Don Winslow of Navy: A Collection of High-Seas Stories from Comic's Most Daring Sailor

Humor & Entertainment

Hailed by many as the greatest war novel of all time and publicly burned by the Nazis for being "degenerate," Erich Maria Remarque's masterpiece, All Quiet on the Western Front, is an elegant statement on a generation of men destroyed by war. Caught up by a romantic sense of patriotism and encouraged to enlist by authority figures who would not risk their lives to do the same, Paul Bäumer and his classmates join the fighting in the trenches of the Western Front in World War I. He is soon disenchanted by the constant bombardments and ruthless struggle to survive. Through years in battle, Paul and those he serves with become men defined by the violence around them, desperate to stay as decent as they can while growing more and more distant from the society for which they are fighting. This graphic novel recreates the classic story in vivid detail through meticulous research. The accurate depictions of uniforms, weapons, trenches, and death brings the horrors of the Western Front to life in a bold new way.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Dead Reckoning)

Vansant, Wayne

Adapted from the naval history classic and New York Times bestseller, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors pieces together the action of the Battle off Samar, bringing to life a riveting story of heroism against daunting odds, duty, and sacrifice in a way never seen before. In October 1944, Allied forces began landing on the Philippine island of Leyte. Quickly assessing the threat of the Allied invasion, the Japanese navy sought to counterattack. But with the island protected by the full strength of Admiral William F. Halsey's Third Fleet, a direct attack was nearly impossible. Undeterred, the Japanese Admiralty deployed their forces, engaging the Third Fleet and retreating in a manner that drew the fleet into a hot pursuit. However, Admiral Halsey had been deceived, and the Japanese plan had taken his fleet out of position to defend the American beachhead. With the northern route to Leyte open and unguarded, the Japanese Center Force--a fleet led by the battleship Yamato, the largest and most powerful battleship ever constructed--seemingly had a clear path to the landing beaches on Leyte. Only one thing stood between the Japanese forces and the vulnerable objective. Taffy 3, a small task unit from the Seventh Fleet was made up of destroyers, destroyer escorts, and escort aircraft carriers; thirteen ships with little firepower and even less armor. On the morning of October 25, 1944, Taffy 3 suddenly became the only obstacle between the Allied landings and the Japanese Center Force. Hopelessly outmanned and outgunned, Taffy 3 plunged into battle. The ensuing action, known as the Battle off Samar, became one of the greatest last stands in naval history.

The Last Stand of Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour (Dead Reckoning)

Hornfischer, Estate of James D

As the German Army smashes deep into the Soviet Union and the defenders of the Motherland retreat in disarray, a new squadron arrives at a Russian forward airbase. Like all night bomber units, they will risk fiery death flying obsolete biplanes against the invader--but unlike the rest, these pilots and navigators are women. In the lethal skies above the Eastern Front, they will become a legend--known to friend and foe alike as the Night Witches. With casualties mounting and the conflict devouring more and more of her comrades, Lieutenant Anna Kharkova quickly grows from a naive teenager to a hardened combat veteran. The Nazi foe is bad enough, but the terrifying power of her country's secret police makes death in battle almost preferable. Badly wounded and exiled from her own people, Anna begins an odyssey that will take her from the killing fields of World War II to the horrific Soviet punishment camps--and at the top of the world, high above the freezing Arctic Ocean, this Night Witch finds she has one last card to play.

The Night Witches

ENNIS, GARTH

Stalingrad. From August 1942 to February 1943 this model industrial city, bathed by the waters of the Volga, was home to the bloodiest battle of World War II. Stalingrad: Letters from the Volga offers a fast-paced depiction of this titanic struggle: explicit, crude, and without concessions--just as the war and the memory of all those involved demands. The battle rendered devastating results. Almost two million human beings were marked forever in its crosshairs, a frightening figure comprised of the dead, injured, sick, captured, and missing. Military and civilians alike paid with their lives for the personal fight between Stalin and Hitler, which materialized in long months of primitive conflict among the smoking ruins of Stalingrad and its surroundings. Stalingrad: Letters from the Volga presents the battle, beginning to end, through the eyes of Russian and German soldiers. Take a chronological tour of the massacre, relive the fights, and feel the drama of trying to survive in a relentless hell of ice and snow.

Stalingrad: Letters from the Volga (Dead Reckoning)

Gil Ortega Sr., Antonio

Gil, Antonio L.

"From hauling munitions to finding mines, and even being captured by the enemy and traded in a PoW exchange, animals have fought-and often died-alongside their human counterparts in virtually every military conflict in recorded history. You've likely heard the stories of the men and women who've fought in the trenches, jungles, and deserts of the world's battlefields; Four-Fisted Tales: Animals in Combat tells the stories of the animals who fought alongside them"--

Four-Fisted Tales: Animals in Combat (Dead Reckoning)

Towle, Ben

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