Number 2345: Airboy re-tells his origin story

Airboy’s story is as an orphan, raised in a monastery by a Franciscan monk who also happened to design and build trick aircraft (hey, it’s a comic book, where stuff like this is easier to swallow). It was first told in Air Fighters #2 in 1942. The character was created by Charles Biro, and was a hit. Airboy’s wing-flapping plane, Birdie, apparently never runs out of fuel, and can go just about anywhere. As we see in this story it even flies into the famous Paris sewers. (Remember, it's a comic book.)

The artwork was done by Dan Barry, who had a very slick style. Barry is one of my favorite comic artists of the period. He worked on comic strips and comic books, doing Tarzan and Flash Gordon in newspapers and working in crime comics for Charles Biro while also drawing for DC Comics. He poured a lot into his work. Whatever the page rate he got in those days, it probably wasn’t enough.

From Airboy Volume 11, Number 4 (1948):

Posted in: Pappy Comics