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Choose from the list of example heroes
So you have decided to contribute to our contest Make comics of real heroes. You are supposed to draw a story about the real hero. Choose from the list below or find another real story. The preselected heroes are not favored by the jury in any way.
ANÍBAL MILHAIS – A Portuguese farmer who served as a soldier during The Great War (later known as WWI). Twice he faced an entire German battalion to cover the retreat of his allies. He was the most decorated Portuguese soldier in The Great War.
WITOLD PILECKI – A Polish soldier and co-founder of the Secret Polish Army during World War II. He volunteered to infiltrate Auschwitz concentration camp by being imprisoned. He managed to send messages informing the Allies of Nazi atrocities at the camp. After 2½ years he escaped Auschwitz and fought in other battles during World War II. The communists executed him in 1948 because he remained loyal to the Polish government-in-exile.
WOJTEK – A Persian bear cub who was adopted by a unit of Polish soldiers training under the British Army in the Middle East during World War II. During the Battle of Monte Cassino he loaded 100-pound boxes of artillery shells into trucks all day long, every day until the battle was won.
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE – A British nurse during the Crimean War. She organised care for wounded soldiers. She became known as “The Lady with the Lamp” for making rounds of wounded soldiers at night. After the war she founded a nursing school. Nowadays she is considered as a founder of modern nursing.
ADRIAN CARTON DE WIART – A British Army officer born of Belgian and Irish parents. He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, “Frankly I enjoyed the war.”
„MAD JACK“ CHURCHILL – A British Adventurer and sportsman. During World War II he was part of a Commandos unit. He was known for the motto: “Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed.” He preferred to go into action with a longbow, bagpipes and a Scottish claymore.
NICHOLAS WINTON – A British humanitarian who established an organization to rescue children at risk from Nazi Germany. Winton supervised the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II. His work went unnoticed by the world for over 50 years.
VALERIJ ALEXEJEVIČ LEGASOV – A prominent Soviet nuclear scientist. After the Chernobyl disaster on 26th April 1986 Legasov became a key member of the government commission formed to investigate the causes of the disaster. It’s mostly thanks to him that the Chernobyl disaster didn’t turn into a global catastrophe with millions of deaths.
VIOLETTE SZABO – A French/British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent during the Second World War. She only managed to go on two missions, but her reports from occupied France were vital for the British. On her second mission, Szabo was captured, interrogated, tortured and deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she was executed.
SIMO HÄYHÄ – A Finnish farmer, hunter and skier prior to his military service. During the Winter War he defended his country from the Soviet invasion in 1939. He shot 500 enemy soldiers, half of them with a sniper rifle.
BEN L. SOLOMON – An American dentist assigned as a front-line surgeon during World War II. When the Japanese started overrunning his hospital, he stood a rear-guard action, allowing the safe evacuation of the wounded, killing as many as 98 enemy troops before being killed himself during the Battle of Saipan.
JOHN R. MCKINNEY – A United States soldier who received the Medal of Honor in World War II during the campaign to recapture the Philippines. Although greatly outnumbered by about 100 Japanese soldiers, McKinney was single-handedly able to secure a crucial battlefield area before reinforcements arrived. He even used his carabiner butt in the fight.
ALVIN YORK – An American worker devoted to the Church. He was drafted into the army despite his objections that his religion forbade violence. After a drastic experience he became a nemesis for Germans. He captured 132 German soldiers during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. He was awarded with medals by 4 different countries.
AUDIE MURPHY – In order to enlist in the U. S. Army he had to falsify his birth date. He received every military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. After the war he became a popular actor in war and western movies.
FRANZ STIGLER – A German fighter pilot who started flying at the age of twelve and as a 15-year-old flew for Lufthansa. For his frags he earned an Iron Cross, but his most notable action was not shooting at all. When he caught up to a wounded British airplane B-17, he saw a frantic crew trying to save the lives of their fellow airmen. He decided to escort the enemy plane to the North Sea coast instead of shooting it down. He never mentioned it publicly before a spared British pilot found and befriended him 50 years after the war.
JUAN PUJOL GARCÍA – A Spaniard who acted as a double agent with loyalty to Great Britain against Nazi Germany. He invented a network of fictitious agents. In the end, the Germans found themselves funding a network of 27 agents, all fictitious. Pujol played a key role in the success of Operation Fortitude, the deception operation intended to mislead the Germans about the invasion of Normandy in 1944.
SEMPRONIUS DENSUS – A Roman centurion in the Praetorian Guard – personal bodyguards of the emperor. He single-handedly defended the emperor Galba from scores of armed assassins – the renegade praetorians. He died during this selfless act of loyalty.
SAITO MUSASHITO BENKEI – A Japanese warrior monk who served the legendary general Minamoto no Yoshitsune while fighting against the Taira clan. In the end, both men were encircled by 300 samurai. He allowed his master to commit seppuku (a ritual suicide) by guarding the bridge alone. Enemies were not able to defeat him in combat, therefore they decided to kill him with arrows. Even after being shot to death he remained standing.
UNKNOWN NORSE AXEMAN – During the Battle of Stamford Bridge (1066) a single giant Viking blocked the bridge facing off the English army. He single-handedly cut down up to 40 Englishmen. He was defeated when an English soldier floated under the bridge in a half-barrel and mortally wounded the giant from below.
DIAN WEI – A Chinese military officer serving under the chancellor Cao Cao. He sacrificed himself while covering the escape of his master during a treacherous ambush. He successfully saved Cao Cao by killing tens of ambushers. He fell during the battle.
LÉO MAJOR – A Canadian solder who was decorated in two separate wars. During World War II he single-handedly liberated the city of Zwolle from German army occupation. He earned his second Distinguished Conduct Medal in the War in Korea when he captured and held a key hill in November 1951.
JOZEF GABČÍK AND JÁN KUBIŠ – A Slovak and a Czech soldier in World War II. They were trained as paratroopers and appointed a mission to assassinate Nazi SS officer and Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The mission called Anthropoid was successful, but both of them were killed in the aftermath. Their success was one of the most important resistance actions in the whole of Nazi-occupied Europe.
ADOLF BURGER – A Jewish Slovak typographer who printed false baptismal certificates for Jews scheduled for deportation to concentration camps, which stated they had been Roman Catholic from birth. After being discovered, he was arrested and forced to print false British banknotes in order to ruin the British economy.
Draw their Story
Create your own comic story about your chosen hero on 2-12 pages. Please follow these rules.
- The comic books world is full of fictional heroes, but you know, they are so… not real. In this project you are invited to pay tribute to real heroes of your choice. We’ve made a list of some real world heroes but you are completely free to send a story about any real hero you think deserves it.
- This competition is for comics and graphical novels authors. Only finished (drawn) works are accepted. Whether it’s coloured or B/W depends entirely on you.
- There are multiple winners, your odds are really high. In the end the jury will choose a set of stories that will be published as a printed comic book. Every winner will be paid €100 for their published story.
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