Charley's War in the mud

I was rereading a bunch of Judge Dredd megazines from the 2000s recently, and got sucked into Charley's War again, after seeing it reprinted in the Meg of the time. It's impossible to avoid being drawn into it because of the sheer quality, and I've had to read the whole series again.

It's the best war comic ever created. Pat Mills' scripts are still so angry and so very sad, after all these years. The story of a noble and ordinary bloke dealing with the horrors of war - all that pointless death, and all that endless mud. No other comic ever gets as literally filthy as this.

Artist Joe Colquhoun passed away almost 40 years ago now, but he remains unmatched in his ability to draw mud in all its forms. The first world war is full of it - crusted on the uniform, sucking you in, piled up and blow apart and spreading everywhere. Colquhoun's mud is thick and clawing. Everyone is covered in it, and it can be as as perilous as the bullets coming at your face.

Occasionally the comic would get out of the trenches, and show what Charley's cousins and pals were up to in air combat, or out at sea. But it always came back to the trenches, and it always came back to the best mud in comics.