We're back with a look at the second part of the classic-but-mostly-forgotten storyline in which aviator Airboy battled the threat of super-intelligent rats waging war against humanity. It was a memorable two-part encounter, one that certainly made an impact on the readers of the say. By the time it was published in late 1948, interest … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: The Rats Capture Airboy
As the 1940s were drawing to a close, a new genre was beginning to gain in popularity in the comic book field. This genre was horror, and it would only be a short time before EC Comics jumped on this growing interest to create some of the most memorable comic book stories of the period. … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: Airboy Fights the Rats
As we covered not long ago, Airboy was one of the most successful characters of the Golden Age of Comics. Not quite a super hero, more an adventurer aviator, the characters was perhaps better positioned to adjust to the changing tastes of the evolving audience, particularly in the postwar period. Created in 1942, AIRBOY COMICS … Continue reading The Last Airboy Story
In 1988, Eclipse comics was celebrating its ten-year anniversary as a publisher. Founded by Jan and Dean Mullaney, Eclipse was one of the earliest entrants into the nascent Direct Sales marketplace of Comic Book specialty shops. The company was also a proponent of creator-ownership and offered a better publishing arrangement than the mainstream outfits of … Continue reading Brand Echh: TOTAL ECLIPSE #1
Airboy was one of the more popular and long-lasting series of the Golden Age of Comics. Created by Charles Biro in the pages of AIR FIGHTERS COMICS #2, Airboy was young Davy Nelson, the heir to a robotic batwinged plane named Birdie developed by his late father, who used it to fight the Axis in … Continue reading Lost Crossovers: AIRBOY v3 #12
Eclipse had established itself early on as one of the most creator-friendly alternative comics on the burgeoning Direct Market scene. They began publishing in 1978 with the issuing of Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy's graphic novel SABRE. Publishers Jan and Dean Mullaney had been huge comics fans throughout the 1970s, and as the tastes of … Continue reading Brand Echh: Airboy #1
There really wasn't a lousier time to try to start up a new color comic book line than the very early 1970s, but this didn't stop Skywald. Skywald was a joint venture of Israel Waldman, who had previously been behind the I.W./Super comics line of unauthorized golden age reprint titles distributed directly to department stores … Continue reading Brand Echh – The Heap #1
The entirety of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's BATMAN: YEAR ONE story was must reading, and this final installment wrapped the story up beautifully--a story more of hard-boiled cop Jim Gordon than really of Batman (who doesn't appear in costume all that much throughout it. ) Mazzucchelli channels the best attributes of Alex Toth in … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Comics of 1987
As I think I've spoken about in the past, I came from a family of readers. Both my father and my mother would read books regularly, and it was this love of reading that helped make it acceptable and unquestioned that I had an interest in comic books--they understood that reading was reading. And so … Continue reading BHOC: THE COMIC-BOOK BOOK
A fun AIR FIGHTERS COMICS cover by Charles Biro featuring Airboy. The early Airboy covers tended to be more concept and design oriented than the typical covers of the period, and this one uses actual newspaper copy as it’s background.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 