Covered 365: Day 43

Now that’s what I like – a topic inside a topic! Today it’s a brain teaser – how does Airboy Volume 4 #8 end up as “Day 43 – Airboy Comics #47”? At first I thought the answer was “lots of club soda”, but after some research I think the answer is some club soda for Walt, some club soda for the dear departed Hillman staff, and some bureaucracy. First, by ticking and tying this is indeed Airboy Comics #43, not #47. I could take issue with the numbering as there is a strong argument that this is really Airboy #21, as the first twenty-two issues were Air Fighters, although Hillman took pains for nine issues to remind readers that Airboy was the Artist Formerly Known As Air Fighters. (I’m sure that many readers were comforted that they weren’t handling a weird “new” comic book title, because we know how resistant comic book readers are to first issues of a new title.) That still leaves the arithmetic series question of how an even issue number from volumes with an even number of monthly issues could end up being an odd numbered issue. Here the Hillman 1945 Christmas party comes into play (a doozy given the end of the war), resulting in Hillman forgetting to publish a Volume 4 #3, and just jumping to #4. So indeed this is the forty-third issue of the series starting with Air Fighters #1.

The above nonsense explains why this book wasn’t on my list. No arguments with this one as I had a hard time coming up with anything really good for #43. It does seem like you could run this exercise by restricting it to “365 damsel in distress covers”. You have to hand it to the baddies for putting so much effort into their setup. In the real world only Kim Jong Un seems to have the resources and drive to utilize such approaches.