(Note by Virus- Oops, change o’ plan. I’ll finish it for Saturday, and I may as well put up one more night of filler, since we have so much lying around. This one’s by Rico Quixote. Some nice little touches on Lothar’s dialogue here. Well done. The real comic was going very well. It’s just that figuring out colour schemes for new characters always takes me a long time (tease tease). I’d gladly stay up all night to finish it, were it not for work in the morning. Don’t worry, after all this week’s sameyness, the comic update is going to be something very different. Now over to Lothar.
-Virus)

Yeah, we decided to end the caption contest early because we were getting bloody sick of seeing the same four panels over and over, and I’m sure you were too. Oh and that reminds me, last Friday when we said we wern’t accepting any more entries? WE MEANT IT. *Bats people over the head who kept sending entries in*

To people who sent in fan art to our new fan art gmail account (enfanart[at]gmail[dot]com), haven’t had time to sort through it all because of the silly amounts of caption contest entries, but I’ll get there eventually.

Also while I’m at it Queen Qeeko, EN’s unoffical “back up” artist, has started her own website along with some of her other artist friends and fiancé Andy, so everyone please check out Ultima Java for webcomics, a nice forum and coffee.

Been alternating between 360 games as of late, but I completed Call of Duty 2 (on Easy, going back through on normal) which is the best World War II game in the world, EVER. And I also completed Blazing Angels last night, while by no means a Crimson Skies equal, is pretty decent. However it did get me thinking about how World War II gets portrayed in the media, mostly Hollywood, and how fucking annoying it is for anyone who isn’t American.

See what’s annoying is this. Hollywood treats World War II like a starting point, then fucks with it until it makes America look brilliant. So let’s look at some misconceptions Hollywood has about the War, shall we?

1) The war started in 1941. Oh yeah, what the hell were we doing from 1939? Amazingly America did NOT want to get involved in the War at all, aside from providing equipment to the Allies…AND ONLY EQUIPMENT. If Pearl Harbour never happened it’s quite conceivable that, while America would have been dragged into the War eventually as Hitler wanted to conquer it, they probably wouldn’t have unless attacked much later on.

2) Even when America wasn’t in the War, they still kicked arse. You may have heard of a Spielberg film called “The Few” that is directed by Spielberg and starring Tom Fucking Cruise. Basically its gonna be the life about an American pilot named Billy Fiske who joined the RAF when America wasn’t involved in the War, ignoring America’s neutrality laws. Now Fiske was a real bloke, who did fight (and die) in the Battle of Britain, but you just KNOW they’re gonna bugger it up and make it seemed like he saved the “plucky underdog Brits” from the Nazis.

True there were other American pilots in the RAF and they did help fight the Nazis in the Battle of Britain, but you know how many there were? TEN. THAT’S IT. Most of them died. Now, not to sound petty, but how about a bloody film that accurately portrays the damn Battle? Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia.

“The flyers were overwhelmingly Britons in the RAF (2,353 out of a total of 2,927, by one counting; of them, 407 were killed, out of a total death roll of 510). However, there were many from other British Empire countries (particularly New Zealand, South Africa and Canada), as well as exiles from many conquered European nations. In particular, there were several squadrons of men from Poland, and many from Czechoslovakia as well. Although this action took place well before the USA entered the war, there were a handful (10, by one count) of US pilots involved.”

So how come there’s no bloody films about the Polish? These poor buggers had their country conquered at the beginning of the War and fought like fucking tigers. Rabid tigers, with guns, and nuclear bombs strapped to their foreheads so they could head-butt(sp?) Hitler in the crotch (ok, maybe not).

3) America was the only country there on D-Day. Now admittedly the landings at Omaha Beach was the largest, and bloodiest, of the landings, and it was the main American attack point, but there were Polish, Canadian, British and OTHER American landings at the other bloody beaches? Juno, Gold, Utah, Pointe Du Hoc…I mean just bloody mention it in passing, have some Brits walk pass the camera or SOMETHING. Still, Saving Private Ryan’s portrayal of the events of Omaha beach is probably one of the best cinematic examples of the D-Day landings, as it was a bloody hellhole.

What you have to note about this is that I’m not moaning about America’s role in the war. Let’s face it, without America it’s, while not an absolute certainty, it’s probably near 99% certain that Germany would have kept it’s grip on Europe. But it’s just annoying that Hollywood seem to think America did it all by themselves. Which brings me on to my next point.

4) What about the bloody Russians? Ok yes they were run by a dictator who was pretty much as bad as Hitler, but by FUCK did these guys know how to fight…well not at first. I don’t know if many of the people here know much about Russia’s role in the war, but they saved everyone’s bloody arses, including that of America. See when Hitler decided right in the middle of the 1941, Hitler decided “Hey, let’s invade Russia” and thus opened up the war on the 2nd front to the east. The Russians at this point were a bit busy with conflicts with Finland, combined with the fact they had signed a “let’s not fight each other” agreement with Germany, in some cases supplying them, but when Germany attacked.

Big mistake.

See, compared to most of the other militaries in World War II, Russia wasn’t the most modern or well equipped mostly because it didn’t need to ve, and because of this initial surprise the Germans overwhelmed and pushed quite a way into Russia, managing to take Stalingrad, the town named after it’s leader. Did they retreat? Like HELL they did. What the Russians lacked in “modern” military equipment (both in quantity and quality) they made up for in man power and sheer stubbornness. Stalin ordered a policy of “Not One Step Back” to take back Stalingrad, which worked like this:

a) One guy gets a rifle.
b) One guy gets the bullets.
c) Charge at the German machine guns.
d) If someone with a rifle dies, pick it up and use it.
e) You stop or turn around, your own side shoots you without hesitation.

Now these are horribly brutal tactics, but frankly it’s all the Russians had to work with. And they worked because of the sheer number of troops that were thrown at the German forces. And I do mean troops, as there were many cases of men with no weapons charging right at the machine guns. The Russians also were one of the first militaries to allow women to fight on the front lines, but mostly in the roles of snipers.

Still however brutal these tactics were, they worked, and the Germans were soon booted out of Russia by 1944 (it’s a big place). By this time however, Russia had caught up with the production of weapons and had decided they were out for German blood. So for the rest of the war they pretty much slaughtered the German ranks on eastern front, slashing their way through Europe on a merry march of death towards Berlin.

Oh and here’s a clue for some people who I’ve met who didn’t know this. THE RUSSIANS WERE THE ONES WHO TOOK BERLIN. Yes I have actually spoken to people who thought it was the Allied forces, mainly America, but we were only a few miles (in relative comparison) into the country by the time the Russians were able to attack Berlin. The Russians also lent aid during the Pacific Theatre after the war in Europe was done. So they really don’t get enough credit for what they did to help stop Hitler.

5) Personal annoyance. The film U-571, where an America sub crew captured the German ENIGMA code machine which helped to break German codes and end the war? In reality, British sub, British decoders *waves Brit flag*

So yeah, I hate Hollywood’s portrayal of World War II.