Little Known Incidents of WWII - No 7. 'Flashing The Flesh'

I was extolling the revealing virtues of Army shorts in recent posts.
The covers of 1960's war comics often flashed soldier flesh,
in spite of the impressionable ages of their readers.

 When I was younger I was much attracted to blond, young men, probably influenced by the West Coast surfing craze of the time and a more specific, schoolboy crush. I suspect I might have found this character's extravagant hair a bit too blond, but he's clearly intended to press buttons with his audience and I immediately suspected a gay hand behind the picture (as is my wont!) 

The short sleeves and badges, the exotic (to a Brit!) Australian labelling and the sensual skin tones all hint of erotic intent. The stretch creases on the far leg of the shorts seem very emphatic too. Wearing shorts in the jungle seems daring anyway, with all those creepy crawlies lurking around. That leg-up pose and the sheer briefness of his shorts (with just a hint of sexy, ragged hems) speaks for itself. 

But if you look at his raised left leg, what else do you see? 

At first I thought the shorts were billowing wildly outwards and revealing naked buttock inside. Then I realised that his (revealed) bottom cheek looked too small for that, but perhaps the lower roundness of it had been hastily camouflaged by the artist so to look like the inside of his shorts. Still a bit racy though!

Eventually I saw that if you disregard the thick, curving shadow that seems to define the inside edge of the shorts (continuing the hem line curving down from the top of his thigh), then a smaller triangular billow, just as is implied by the skin colouring, becomes more obvious. This altered version by me, with the shadow removed, illustrates what I mean. It wouldn't be there in a photograph, there's no scientific basis for it being there. When it's removed, however, the clothed buttock is still sexy!

Perhaps that was the artists dilemma. But I prefer to imagine that he wanted to live up to the Commando tag of the series and suggest to his readers a bare fleshy buttock!

As I have remarked before, he didn't have to draw it like that did he?
That comment might equally be applied to the next cover image. 

Just the title of this story would get the pulse racing for many men, but the image is something else. Once again we see a soldier in unusually short shorts, with just the teeniest hint of ragged edge to suggest they were once much longer (they would have been in real life, but don't think I'm complaining!) 

Closer inspection of his shorts (well, we all look don't we?) reveals some odd details. The fly opening finishes well above his groin, so having a pee would entail dropping them round his knees or ankles - with all those sex-starved comrades around! Maybe that's why he 's shortened the legs, to get it out that way. The area below his fly is confused, it's blurred and bears little relation to the contours of his body, erotic or otherwise. The blue-ish area between his legs is just plain wrong and the dark shadows and open leg just to the right of it end abruptly (like his fly seems to). 

Conclusion? This was once a much more interesting picture that has been doctored.

The open legged, kneeling pose is not devoid of eroticism either and it's not a standard firing position. Oddest of all, he's straddling rocks, one of which is touching his inner thigh and looking rather like a buttock and the other having a very suggestive shape of a different kind! 

An artist's revenge on the censor?

  For some reason the jungle seems to give even greater flesh-flashing opportunities.
I think the warm, humid atmosphere must rot the cloth.

There's no need to look for hidden eroticism in this picture. The soldiers tattered threads, square jaw adorned with stubble, hunky (and hairy?) bared arms and menacing weapon all adequately deliver the goods and the artist has even given him ginger hair for niche tastes. Personally I think he's too well tanned to be a ginge, it must be out of a bottle.

A handsome GI lost in the jungle for my American readers.
This is from a different book but it looks like the same artist is responsible.
This chap's even showing a nice bit of chest hair, but that part of his body still in uniform is beyond reproach or insinuation from me. Very straight. No funny shaped rocks even.

The full cover below shows he's in a very dangerous situation,
allowing us to imagine him being captured (and stripped and tortured?)

click to enlarge

This final example is not flesh-baring at all, but at first sight it looks like it is, with the charging soldier seeming to show a bared right leg, like a mason. It's actually a trick of the shading but that shadow and the highlighting of the leg below is really very odd. 

As I may have said before, the artist didn't have to draw it like that did he?

(I'll pass over the suggestive angling of the gun pointing up between his legs from the trench!).

For other articles in this series click on the 'war comics' label below

Go to No 8 - 'Bizarre Brutality'