The publication Leatherhead in Korea was a collection of comedic cartoons published by Norvel E. Packwood, an artist for the Marine Corps Gazette. The comics were originally published in the Gazette, and were compiled into this publication in 1952. The comics in Leatherhead in Korea were short - generally one panel - and drew upon Packwood’s experiences in the field. His pieces differ from many of the other comics I examine, in that they are less propagandistic than the others, and only sought to make light of typical situations the soldiers found themselves in.
The masculinity of the soldiers was elevated by emasculating the journalists in the military. While two soldiers sit next to each other on a hill, both dreaming about scantily-clad pinups.[^] On the other side of the hill, looking lonely and dejected, a journalist sits and dreams about a typewriter.[^] In this bit of self-deprecating humor, military journalists are shown to be less masculine than soldiers in a few ways. First, in a departure from the heteronormativity and virility displayed by the soldiers, the journalist is not preoccupied by women. This absence of a sexually masculine marker depicts the journalist as unmasculine, a quality which contributes to the inferior depiction of him in relation to the other soldiers. The journalists are feminized and separated from the soldiers, emphasizing the masculinity that is implicit with warfare.