Canada at War, an attempt by Toronto writer and professor Paul Keery and artist Michael Wyatt to lay out the broad strokes of this country’s participation in the Second World War, only makes the whole messy business seem even more confusing. The book manages to be both too simplistic and too detailed and wonkish, getting bogged down in the minutiae of particular battles and losing sight of the war’s larger historical arc, while also telling a tale that boils down to “Nazis bad, Canadians good! Blam, blam, blam – hurray!” None of this is ameliorated by the book’s cheap-looking and unfocused comic-book format.

The problems begin in the very first pages. With no introduction, readers find themselves dropped right away into a discussion of the Great Depression and Canada’s underfunding of its military between the two world wars. Hitler becomes German chancellor and consolidates power in the space of two panels, and then we are returned to the question of Canadian military funding. Readers learn more about the 1941 invasion of Hong Kong and the creation of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plant than they do about why Germany and Japan suddenly went so epically rogue in the first place.

Text and images conspire to confuse the reader in this muddy slog. Keery leaves out large chunks of the story, and skips around in time. Meanwhile, Wyatt’s digitally created scenes are all sub–Sgt. Rock – the majority of Allied soldiers look like Douglas Fairbanks, the Nazis barely register beyond a scowl, and the Japanese soldiers are depicted with yellow skin and slit eyes. (Compare these scenes to Scott Chantler’s infinitely superior graphic novel Two Generals.) Young readers trying to get a rough sense of Canada’s war effort from this book will likely surrender before they reach D-Day.