In this contribution, we analyse the artistic linguistic expression in three selected comic strips on the First World War that were published about 100 years after the end of the war. Therefore, we compare the aestheticized language with the authentic linguistic usage of ordinary people in their private correspondence and in war diaries written between 1914 and 1918. From a lexical point of view, both authentic and artistic texts are marked by an affinity with popular and colloquial French and, to a lesser extent, with trench slang (