Writer James Robinson and artist Greg Hinkle made the best comic book of 2015. At only four issues it was brief, but an adrenaline-fueled masterpiece nonetheless. The original Airboy character started during WW2. He was the typical, Nazi fighting super-hero. In this new book, James Robinson and Greg Hinkle are characters attempting to re-boot the book but are short on ideas. When they go on an alcohol, sex, and drug-induced bender, Airboy shows up wondering how he got to 2015 and what the hell is going on? Robinson and Hinkle eventually travel back to WW2 to help Airboy and his crew save the day while also trying to clean up their acts. The book is a lot like the gonzo adventures of writer Hunter S. Thompson and artist Ralph Steadman mixed with the Charlie Kaufman film, Adaptation. This means that it's a lot of fun but also crazy, wild, exciting, entertaining, controversial, cathartic, and touching. The art is loose but detailed and it's perfect for this. The writing is the star, though. Robinson really lays it all out here; his failures as a writer and a human being are told with such gut-wrenching, sad sincerity that the emotion just drips off the page. But the book is also hilarious. It's an R-rated romp that is breath-taking in its audaciousness. This is, in my opinion, James Robinson's finest hour. It's one hell of a read, and reaches new heights that very few comic books even dare to dream about.
