Airboy #2

By James Robinson, Greg Hinkle

“Wow, so many bright lights. Hey, is it normal to have itchy hair?”

“Your scalp? Sure.”

“No, my hair. My actual hair.”

Seriously though… this happen to anyone else?

Airboy proves yet again with issue #2 what a fun and romantic life comic book writers and artists live… just as much as Californication defines the life of a novelist. Writer James Robinson along with artist Greg Hinkle has created a world where he can look into some of his own struggles while fantasizing about leaving it all behind and starting new somewhere else. To stretch this idea even further the title character, Airboy, shows up and has trouble getting used to the “real” world…or at least the drug & alcohol fueled world of this comic.

Robinson kicks off this issue with a brief recap of the ending to last issue… when an unexpected guest decided to show up. In the story Robinson and Hinkle try to think of reasons how a comic book character could appear in their world… it’s the drugs, man… right? It’s this back and forth that provides a lot of the humor in this issue as they try to reason with one another on how to deal with Airboy.

A funny scene comes when Airboy decides to take a quick trip to the restroom and Robinson tries to piece together what it really means, “I think maybe one of us — you — me — subconsciously needs to pee and Airboy getting up to go is some kind of latent manifestation.” Is Airboy really there? Or are they just dreaming it all up? The issue does a good job of laying this out throughout the issue as Robinson and Hinkle always seem to have a reason for his actions.

Something artist Greg Hinkle does throughout the issue is present the “real” world in a more depressed color palette than Airboy (blues, greens), causing us to wonder which world might actually be real… hmmm. The initial first meeting of these characters shows Robinson in this blue/green color scheme as he shakes the hand of Airboy – who is in full color – also a nice take on the image because in Airboy’s time they done didn’t have no color photography (or proper grammar?).

Airboy is a story about creating a story, but then along comes the character of the story into the real world… you’ll just have to check it out. Robinson and Hinkle have created a unique story that reads like an episode of Californication crossed with Saturday morning cartoons.  It’s a masterpiece!