Patrick:
S
o this week’s pick for a cool comic is continuing my trend of picking 4-color Superhero books and is a continuation of a previous pick. I choose Image Comic’s “Airboy” by James Robinson and Greg Hinkle #2 this week as the top of my buy pile, it edged out the amazing continuation of Alex De Campi’s “No Mercy” (which you should also read) and Orlando’s “Midnighter” #2 which is a lot of fun. You may recall my review of the first issue of “Airboy” a few weeks back, and I am here to say that the promise of that first issue is kept and continued with #2. This second installment ratchets up everything I enjoyed about the first issue, and takes the book’s creators to crazier heights.
Spoilers if you haven’t finished issue #1 of “Airboy”, but to recap the book’s author Robinson and artist Hinkle were on a barbiturate-laced adventure through the seedy underbelly of San Francisco, trying to come up for an original idea for a comic book reboot of the titular Golden Age character. Through the fog of drugs and post-devils-threeway haze they are visited by a full-color personification of the comic Book character. This issue deals with the two comic book creators showing Airboy around the modern world where he’s honestly surprised that the Nazi’s didn’t win, and along the way they obviously do more drugs.
So, plot out of the way which has been done, though never as beautifully drawn in comics as Hinkle’s work brings to the table, this comic does a lot of things really well that draw me in as a reader and a comic book fan. I think that it is hard for many authors to subjectively put themselves on the page, whether it be writing in their own voice or through a character’s but what we get here is a great deal of honesty about Robinson’s own capabilities and faults as a writer. In this issue he talks about being “done with DC” for various reasons, but primarily citing that he is depressed while writing comics, which for many creators is their dream job. Being unable to connect with the words that you are trying to put down on paper is difficult, but perhaps is even more challenging when you are shoe-horned into a story or universe.
In “Airboy” we get ontological conversations about reality, discussions of delusions and dimensions, and get to see a lot of pathos from the two names on the front of the book. I really want this book to continue the amazing dialogue in this second issue, which in my mind far exceeded the first. Also, if you just want more great art of James Robinson’s dongle then Hinkle’s got you covered. The comic book creator avatars continue their journey into the Neverland of comic book heights in “Airboy” #2 from Image comics
Myles: TBA
Drew: TBA