Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine

Number 93


Airboy Dazzled and Duped By A Dame!


I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what I could do to commemorate Valentine's Day for you. I never got around to collecting love comics, so I dug around and found this story of how Airboy found--and lost--love.

When Airboy was created by Charles Biro and premiered in Air Fighters Comics #2, he was a boy. By the time this unnamed story was published, in Airboy Comics Volume 5 Number 4, May 1948, Airboy had grown into a young man, maybe 20-years-old or so. When he was younger his special plane, Birdie, was his first love. But by this story Airboy shows he could be dazzled by the opposite sex, just like all of you horny jokers out there reading this.

Fred Kida was the artist. In the late 1940s the art of Milton Caniff on Terry And The Pirates and then Steve Canyon was very influential with other artists. Some artists pulled off the Caniff look better than others. Kida was one of the best. Every page here is a primer in how to draw in that style: naturalistic figure drawing, bold inking, great camera angles and composition, not to mention the use of interesting and exotic backgrounds.

Kida also drew a very nice looking babe in Laura. We can see why Airboy was so taken by her.

Oh, did I mention? The story is interesting, too.