Das Kampf (Bagginer Productions/Vaughn Bodé Productions, 1977).
Das Kampf is a digest-sized collection of cartoonist Vaughn Bodé’s musings and commentary upon war, in the format of a caption beginning “WAR is…” accompanying a single panel illustration. Here are a couple of samples:
According to the printing information on the back cover, the original edition from 1963 had a print run of about 100 copies, run off a mimeograph machine. This site has an image or two of the original version. (Also, the original 1963 publication would seem to contradict the assertion I’ve seen here and there that Das Kampf‘s “War Is” gag format was a parody of the Love Is… comic strip, which began in 1970.) The version I own, “the 1st comic publication” as it is described on the back cover, had a print run of 3,000. It was published in 1977, two years after Bodé’s death.
I acquired my copy as part of a largish underground comix collection bought by the store a number of years ago. Being something of a Bodé fan, and always on the lookout for odd-sized mini-comics/digests for reasons I can’t entirely explain, I decided to keep this particular item for myself. I’ve not seen another copy of this come through the shop, though a quick Googling seems to turn one up one or two for sale. Amazon has none available, but I’ll put on those product link thingies here anyway, just in case someone there decides to part with a copy of it someday:
