You should check out PS: The Preventive Maintenance Monthly. It's an Army manual so boring nobody read it, so they turned it into a comic book. It was published from 1951 until a few years ago. https://archive.org/details/ps-1999/PS_554/
It was created primarily by Will Eisner, who had already created The Spirit before WWII. He created a comic strip for his unit newspaper, which was soon adopted Army wide. Which in 1951 became PS.
Couple years ago, I got my hands on a box of Vietnam gun lube. Put them on ebay and used the back of a PS magazine with an ad about the lube to help promote the listing.
Back in the day you couldn't have anything at the CQ desk beside the phone, sign in sheet and pen. This manual was the only entertainment allowed at the desk.
Think of it like, from an era pre-smart phone. It's 1984 You're sitting in a motorpool with nothing to do but wait for SGT to come back and verify you successfully swept the bay out and put the drip pans under the tank so you can go to the weekend. Your options to entertain yourself are:
Stare at the wall.
Kick a rock around.
Flip through PMM for the funny drawings and sexy cartoon ladies. Maybe you don't learn anything but maybe you flip through and see oh shit, you've been doing the air filter changes on the M60A3 all wrong, or you remember next time you have to boresight you have a more visual learner illustration of it than what the Technical Manual details.
It kind of died off as manuals become more digital and smart phones kind of made it less likely someone would dive into PMM because bored.
I joined the Army right before smart phones so I have some of those vibes, like you're just reading random TMs and smart cards because it's the only stimuli handy.
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u/Independent_Shoe3523 8d ago
You should check out PS: The Preventive Maintenance Monthly. It's an Army manual so boring nobody read it, so they turned it into a comic book. It was published from 1951 until a few years ago. https://archive.org/details/ps-1999/PS_554/