Number 915
Doom in the Airtomb!
Airboy stories could go from adventure in exotic lands, a la Terry and the Pirates, to science fiction or supernatural. Misery is a supernatural character who showed up in his Airtomb to plague Airboy from time to time. Misery is still with us. I think I took a flight in the Airtomb once between Pittsburgh and Chicago.
This story, also featuring the sexy ex-Nazi flier, Valkyrie, is from the second issue of Airboy Comics, Volume 2 Number 12 (1946), after the title was changed from the World War II-era Air Fighters Comics. It's drawn well by Fred Kida, and the macabre panels of Misery and the Airtomb are out of a nightmare.
Ooh, this looks good - love the cover!
ReplyDeleteWow!
ReplyDeleteI've never read any Airboys before: I had this picture of him as a lesser spotted Tintin before he grew a pair.
A redeemed Nazi beauty seems almost radical.
A two-fisted bloke who thinks nothing of decking his girl just because she's possessed - whew! - seems almost shocking.
There's one panel - the fourth one on page 8 - which I find absolutely stunning: Airboy reduced almost to pure abstraction.
I look at this and find myself wondering if this was one of the direct ancestors of all those peculiar pictorial conventions which turn up in Japanese Manga comics - the tendency to draw faces with no eyes.
I loved the idea of Misery and the Airtomb, too, (presumably inspired by all the missing WWII planes never recovered).
There's one part makes me glad comics don't have sound - imagine the inadvertent hilarity that'd ensue listening to Misery making his doom mongering deathly pronouncements in a high pitched squeaky voice, accompanied by the even more highly pitched voice of an already adolescent Airboy.
Airboy Comics have a great feel to them. Very exotic, in a way. Thanks for having me revisit them, Pappy!
ReplyDelete@borky—
ReplyDeletePappy earlier posted the first appearance and origin story of the Valkyrie and the Airmaidens.
Pappy, I was so impressed with my first impressions of Airboy I've been irresistibly drawn back for yet another read - aware, of course, familiarity might breed contempt.
ReplyDeleteBut, no! I'm just as impressed as ever: I only wish my boyhood self'd had the opportunity to read this outstanding strip - maybe fate knew it'd be too awesome for his brain to survive the impact.
Marvellous, marvellous stuff!
I only hope somewhere in your next 60 preplanned blogs you've managed to slip in one or two more.
Thank you from me, now - and all my other mes from seven years old onwards!
We made an Airboy fan of Borky!
ReplyDeleteI have an Airboy story set for June 20, "Crabmen of Paris!" Watch out for those French crabs.