Art and War: World War II Graphic Novels

From biographies and historical and political analyses to historical fiction and spy novels, much has been written about World War II. The graphic novel format offers a unique way to approach this era as it creates a multisensory experience to depict dramatic events, convey unspeakable cruelties, and explore complex emotions. Below is a select list of graphic novels for adults and teens about this defining era of history.

A Brief History

World War II was a global conflict that began on September 1, 1939 when German forces invaded Poland. Lead by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, the Germans committed countless atrocities across Europe as they sought to eradicate the Jewish population and establish European dominance. The Holocaust, the eradication of European Jews, resulted in the deaths of an estimated six million Jews as well as millions of others.

Jewish people and other “undesirables," such as homosexuals, Romani, the disabled, etc., were routinely rounded up, brutalized, experimented on, murdered, or sent to concentration camps such as Auschwitz. Germany later joined with Italy, Japan, and other countries to form the Axis Powers. After the invasion of Poland, the forces of the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and others rose up against them as the Allies. The war lasted from 1939 to 1945 and resulted in the deaths of millions. 

The United States of America remained neutral regarding the war until December 7, 1941 when Japanese bomber planes attacked the American naval base Pearl Harbor. Other American as well as British naval bases and fleets were attacked leading to  2,403 American deaths and 1,178 Americans wounded. After this, America joined the Allies and created a massive propaganda campaign to drum up support. Soldiers from all races and all walks of life were sent to the front lines while their families struggled to support them from home. 

While these soldiers were off fighting to topple inhumane regimes and liberate concentration camps, many of their families were experiencing horrendous conditions on American soil. Segregation in the south was still in place during this time. German and Japanese Americans experienced racism and discrimination led by their own neighbors who believed they were secretly linked to the Axis powers. 

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which allowed government officials the authority to relocate any and all persons they deemed a threat to national security. Soon after, Japanese Americans were forcefully relocated and incarcerated by their own government. They were placed in internment camps while their properties, businesses, and bank accounts were seized. About 120,000 Japanese Americans, many whose sons and brothers were fighting for America, were forced into these camps with challenging living conditions. These camps remained operational until around the end of the war. The last camp was closed in March 1946. Forty years later, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act which compensated the descendants of those incarcerated Japanese Americans and offered an official apology. 

Around 1942, the American government created the Manhattan Project, which rounded up the expertise of nuclear physicists and engineers to develop new nuclear-based weapons and technology for the war starting around 1942. Through their efforts, the atomic bomb was created. 

After several successful campaigns such as the invasion of Normandy (D-Day, June 6, 1944), victory for the allies was on the horizon.  On January 27, 1945, Soviet forces liberated the concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland. In April 1945, allied forces captured Berlin. Soon afterwards, Hitler committed suicide. Several days later on May 7, 1945 Germany surrendered. At this time, Japan refused to surrender. 

On August 6, 1945, American bomber planes dropped the first atomic bomb to ever be used in warfare on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, the city of Nagasaki received the second atomic bomb. The total death toll is unknown, but it is estimated at 150,000 people in Hiroshima and 75,000 people in Nagasaki. The bombs were used as a way to speed along the end of the war and ultimately save American lives. On August 15, 1945 Japan surrendered, and the war was officially over. 

Aftermath

While the war has been over for more than seventy years, the world has not forgotten, nor can we be allowed to forget. Six million Jews were murdered in the name of racial purity. The liberation of concentration camps revealed the full extent of the Nazi’s cruelty and the suffering of its inmates. In the years following the end of the war, survivors on all sides began producing content that not only reflected their experiences but also expressed their hopes and fears regarding the future. Works such The Diary Of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel’s Night allowed further insight into the Jewish experience during this time.

Originally serialized from 1980 to 1991, Art Spiegelman’s Mausdepicts the experiences of his father, a Holocaust survivor, in graphic novel form. Not only did this work bring attention to the validity of graphic novels as a storytelling format, but it also brought readers a moving, insightful story that stuck with them long after they finished reading.

In the decades since, others have come forward with either their own stories of survival or their own understanding of events. In Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima, creator Keiji Nakazawa depicts a fictionalized version of his very real experience of living as a boy in Hiroshima before and after the drop of the atomic bomb. Nakazawa has been a very vocal critic of Japan's role in the war as well as an advocate for nuclear disarmament, which he explores within his work. 

Keum Suk Gendry-Kim's Grass brings much needed attention to the oft-overlooked and seldom talked about experiences of the Korean women who were sold into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army. Most of the media based around WWII tend to focus on the experiences of Allied soldiers or concentration camp survivors. While these are important and should not be discounted, they tend to skew the perspective of readers into believing that WWII was mainly a European conflict. There were plenty of atrocities and horror happening on the Pacific side of the world that unfortunately has not received nearly the same amount of coverage. 

The graphic novel format allows creators to not only write their own stories but also to control the visuals so that we can quite literally see events through their point of view. 

Below I have gathered a few other graphic novels that can further your insight into this time period.

Based on Memoirs, Biographies, and Reflections

Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Anne Frank; adapted by Ari Folman; illustrations by David Polonsky.

The only graphic biography of Anne Frank's diary that has been authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation and that uses text from the diary—it will introduce a new generation of young readers to this classic of Holocaust literature. This adaptation of Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl into a graphic version for a young readership, maintains the integrity and power of the original work. With stunning, expressive illustrations and ample direct quotation from the diary, this edition will expand the readership for this important and lasting work of history and literature.

Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima by Keiji Nakazawa; translated by Project Gen.

Based on the mangaka’s real life experience surviving the bombing of Hiroshima, A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima details the events leading up to and immediately following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim; translated by Janet Hong

Grass is a powerful anti-war graphic novel, offering up firsthand the life story of a Korean girl named Okseon Lee who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army during the second World War—a disputed chapter in 20th century Asian history. Beginning in Lee's childhood, Grass shows the leadup to World War II from a child's vulnerable perspective, detailing how one person experienced the Japanese occupation and the widespread suffering it entailed for ordinary Korean folk. Keum Suk Gendry-Kim emphasizes Lee's strength in overcoming the many forms of adversity she experienced. Grass is painted in a black ink that flows with lavish details of the beautiful fields and farmland of Korea and uses heavy brushwork on the somber interiors of Lee's memories.

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman

A memoir of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and about his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father, his story, and history. Cartoon format portrays Jews as mice, Nazis as cats. Using a unique comic-strip-as-graphic-art format, the story of Vladek Spiegelman's passage through the Nazi Holocaust is told in his own words.

Genuinely tragic and comic by turns, it attains a complexity of theme and a precision of thought new to comics and rare in any medium. Maus ties together two powerful stories: Vladek's harrowing tale of survival against all odds, delineating the paradox of daily life in the death camps, and the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Vladek's troubled remarriage, minor arguments between father and son, and life's everyday disappointments are all set against a backdrop of history too large to pacify. At every level this is the ultimate survivor's tale—and that too of the children who somehow survive even the survivors.

They Called Us Enemy written by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott ; art by Harmony Becker

A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten 'relocation centers', hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard. They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future. What is American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do?

Meticulously Researched Fiction

Berlin by Jason Lutes

Berlin is an intricate look at the fall of the Weimar Republic through the eyes of its citizens—Marthe Müller, a young woman escaping the memory of a brother killed in World War I, Kurt Severing, an idealistic journalist losing faith in the printed word as fascism and extremism take hold; the Brauns, a family torn apart by poverty and politics. Lutes weaves these characters' lives into the larger fabric of a city slowly ripping apart. The city itself is the central protagonist in this historical fiction. Lavish salons, crumbling sidewalks, dusty attics, and train stations: all these places come alive in Lutes' masterful hand. Weimar Berlin was the world's metropolis, where intellectualism, creativity, and sensuous liberal values thrived, and Lutes maps its tragic, inevitable decline. Devastatingly relevant and beautifully told, Berlin is one of the great epics of the comics medium.

In This Corner of the World story and art by Fumiyo Kouno; translation by Adrienne Beck

1940's Hiroshima Prefecture. Suzu, a young woman from the countryside, joins her new husband and his family in the shipbuilding city of Kure. As her beautiful home collapses around her, Suzu must confront the challenges of a new life while coming to grips with a world in turmoil. Unwilling to give up hope, Suzu struggles against the horrors of war to create her own happiness.

Moving Pictures by Kathryn Immonen; artist, Stuart Immonen.

Moving Pictures is the story of the awkward and dangerous relationship between curator Ila Gardner and officer Rolf Hauptmann, as they are forced by circumstances to play out their private lives in a public power struggle. The narrative unfolds along two timelines which collide with the revelation of a terrible secret, an enigmatic decision that not many would make, and the realization that sometimes the only choice left is the refusal to choose.

Once Upon a Time in France written by Fabien Nury ; drawn by Sylvain Vallée ; translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger

Based on the true story of Joseph Joanovici, a Romanian Jew who immigrated to France in the 1920s and became one of the richest men in Europe as a scrap-metal magnate. During the Second World War he becomes a Nazi collaborator and war profiteer who provides the Nazi regime with the metals it needs, but secretly he uses his wealth and influence to finance the French Resistance and free fellow Jews from Nazi hands. Due to his tactics he was one of the three Jews who were denied Israeli citizenship.

Twists of Fate by Paco Roca; translator, Erica Mena

Eisner-award winner Paco Roca reconstructs World War II through the memories of Miguel Ruiz, a member of 'La Nueve,' a company of men that went from fighting against the Franco regime in the Spanish Civil War to battles across Europe and Africa, spurred on by their patriotism and hate for brutal dictatorships. Ruiz's stories are filled with horror and humor but Twists of Fate is much more than a forgotten hero's personal story. It's a timely look into what we remember and why we forget, a reminder that everyone has a tale to tell, and an ode to a generation that stood up to, and beat back, violent fascism.

Non-Fiction

Normandy, A Graphic History of D-Day: The Allied Invasion of Hitler's Fortress Europe written & illustrated by Wayne Vansant

The Allied invasion of Europe was the most anticipated event of WWII. In this powerful graphic history, Wayne Vansant tells the intricate story of the planning and execution of Operation Overlord from the perspective of both the Allied and Axis forces.

Showa, 1944-1953: A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki; translator, Zack Davisson.

Showa 1944-1953: A History of Japan continues the award-winning author Shigeru Mizuki's autobiographical and historical account of the Showa period in Japan. This volume recounts the events of the final years of the Pacific War, and the consequences of the war's devastation for Mizuki and the Japanese populace at large.

Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm

A graphic novel account of the race to construct the first atomic bomb and the decision to drop it, tracing the early research, the heated debates, and profiles of forefront Manhattan Project contributors.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!

Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.