Cover to the 1963 edition Das Kampf, German for "the struggle" or "the fight," was self-published by Vaughn Bode in May, 1963, while he lived with his wife Barbara and newborn son Mark in a $20-a-month apartment in Utica, New York. He had not yet applied to Syracuse University, but had spent a year in the Army in the late '50s before receiving an honorable discharge.
This experience may have inspired him to produce Das Kampf, a war-themed spoof on Charles Schulz's 1962 book Happiness is a Warm Puppy. Instead of defining what "happiness is" the way Schulz did in his quaint little book, Vaughn defines what "war is" in 100 cartoons. Each cartoon was captioned with a specific definition of war, such as "war is doing something real stupid and not being able to complain afterwards cause you get killed," or, "war is marching all day and all night in the wrong direction." Vaughn borrowed money from his brother Vincent to mimeograph 100 copies of the book, and he then tried to sell them, but sales in Utica were quite poor...
This experience may have inspired him to produce Das Kampf, a war-themed spoof on Charles Schulz's 1962 book Happiness is a Warm Puppy. Instead of defining what "happiness is" the way Schulz did in his quaint little book, Vaughn defines what "war is" in 100 cartoons. Each cartoon was captioned with a specific definition of war, such as "war is doing something real stupid and not being able to complain afterwards cause you get killed," or, "war is marching all day and all night in the wrong direction." Vaughn borrowed money from his brother Vincent to mimeograph 100 copies of the book, and he then tried to sell them, but sales in Utica were quite poor...
1963 edition: vignette captions Fourteen years later (and two years after Bodé's death), his former wife Barbara teamed up with Walter Bachner and Bagginer Productions to publish the second edition of Das Kampf. Bodé's good friend Larry Todd helped out with lettering and layout of the book. Das Kampf is quite clever and insightful about many aspects of war, despite the fact that America was not at war when Bodé wrote it (the military escalation in Vietnam was just beginning to ramp up).
However, the military tension at the Bay of Pigs had recently scared the crap out of America, so Bodé's focus on the Russians in his cartoons is not surprising. Not only is the writing quite good, but Vaughn's illustration skills prove to be solid, especially considering the fact that he was only 21 years old when he drew these cartoons. The first printing of Das Kampf, from May 1963, is an exceedingly rare underground comic, printed on a Gestetner mimeo machine by "Von," his early pen name. The bound book was 5 1/2 by 7 1/2 inches, and a set of captions (printed via spirit duplication) were also part of this set. A reworking of the war theme, with anthropomorphic lizards instead of men, became a recurring element throughout Vaughn's canon of work). The following 1977 reprint of Das Kampf was a comic book-sized edition of 3000 copies ($2.50 each). Lettering done by Larry Todd.
However, the military tension at the Bay of Pigs had recently scared the crap out of America, so Bodé's focus on the Russians in his cartoons is not surprising. Not only is the writing quite good, but Vaughn's illustration skills prove to be solid, especially considering the fact that he was only 21 years old when he drew these cartoons. The first printing of Das Kampf, from May 1963, is an exceedingly rare underground comic, printed on a Gestetner mimeo machine by "Von," his early pen name. The bound book was 5 1/2 by 7 1/2 inches, and a set of captions (printed via spirit duplication) were also part of this set. A reworking of the war theme, with anthropomorphic lizards instead of men, became a recurring element throughout Vaughn's canon of work). The following 1977 reprint of Das Kampf was a comic book-sized edition of 3000 copies ($2.50 each). Lettering done by Larry Todd.
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