April 21st, 1918 - How history is dying

Most people now don't know jack squat about what happened during World War One. After the last veteran died in early 2012, the link to that era is nearly gone, only remembered in history books or by the children of the people of that era, who too, are disappearing slowly from the face of the earth. Their kids, the Baby Boomers, the Wartime Express, as I like to call them - they are too busy with today's technology to teach their kids - my generation - about the war. Korea is a forgotten war. Vietnam is only vaguely remembered by a few (dunno if that's because of the drug-induced haze or the patent unpopularity of the whole shebang there). I can bet that if I EVER get to the ripe old age of my 70s, my son's generation won't remember even the first Gulf war conflict, Bosnia, 9/11, you name it.

 Because of the way history is taught these days, or in my opinion, NOT taught - the reasons for, the reasons why, and the reasons not to of the wars will also be forgotten, and it will happen again.

How does this tie into being a KrautGrrl?, some of you will ask me. By our artwork. By our passions. By our mere existence, no matter how small or how large we are viewed in the world of cartooning/art/deviantart/etc., we MAKE those viewers of our art remember, in a roundabout way. Our art provokes thought. Our art provokes questions that people seek answers to - either by asking us, or googling the sucker.

It also does, sadly, provoke judgment, however erroneous it might be, on our persons, as artists of the extreme, the forbidden, the "holyshitthatsaNazi". But do we quit? No. We soldier on. (and pardon that pun - there will be more as the blog continues, trust me) We continue to pursue our passion for the eras we draw, gather new material, throw in artwitching and little tidbits of history in our stuff, and totally screw up the minds of those that see our artwork and flip their shit. We educate. We ARE the history teachers of this new era - we provoke thought, however good or bad it may be. Through us, we keep history alive.


Now, in that vein, some news. Since the entries for the KrautGrrls book are slow in coming, what Donna and I have decided to do is post what we have here, and then consolidate the entries we've got perhaps by August of this year into the book. Donna can give more information than I can about the publishing aspect, since I'm more of the propaganda minister here, and the grammar Nazi - the only Nazi I ascribe to being. XD XD XD.


Since today is April 21st, 1918, as the blog title tells you, I'd like to take this time to assault your eyes with some Manfred von Richthofen art from my personal archives - stuff I've done in the past to remember our Red Baron and his equally important brother, Lothar von Richthofen.

Here we have a photograph that I have had for quite some time. Is it an original? Most definitely not. But the iconic image of Manfred and his dog, Moritz, is etched in every fangirl's memory. Our Manfred.
Of course, Manfred's sugar addiction is well-known to those that study him. And if you are fans of Bill Watterson, (Calvin and Hobbes) you might recognize the poses.
On DeviantArt, you can type in the search bar the words "Richthofen" (and various misspellings thereof), "Red Baron", "Manfred" and other tags for our subject, and come up with thousands upon thousands of images, some eye-bleach worthy, others mindnumbingly gorgeous in their execution and attention to detail (and, oh yeah, the pizza box guy). My response to this outpouring of Manfred-mania was this little gem. Poor Manfred. If he only knew.

I'll close this with one of the studies I had done a while ago for a commissioned work. Manfred still is as popular now as he was back in his era, among those that know him. Today, as we fans pause to remember him, he remains forever in our hearts.


Want to see more?

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