“Opposition to the War” (ca. 1966)
by Herb Trimpe (1939-2015)
8.75 x 11 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

Trimpe was in Vietnam during the mid-1960s before starting his long comics career at Marvel.

This editorial cartoon is not dated.

Although hardly an uncommon phrase, “opposition to the war” was certainly popularized in the 1966 recording of “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night” by Simon and Garfunkel, a haunting song that collages the singers doing a version of “Silent Night” with a voice of a news report of events from August 3, 1966.

At the end of the news report, a quote from a speech by “former Vice-President Richard Nixon” to the Veterans of Foreign Wars [actually is was to the American Legion] urging an increase in the war effort in Vietnam, and calling “opposition to the war” the “greatest single weapon working against the United States.”

I can find no mention of Trimpe doing editorial work. The cartoon is interestingly sympathetic to Nixon’s view, yet poignantly sympathetic to the effect on the troops… presumably drawing from Trimpe’s experience.