WHAT'S THE PRICE OF A B-17?

[Shay]

Feb 1959






























Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[TonyM]

Did you notice on page three that the B-17s have tricycle landing gear?

TM

[PhantomAce08]

Did you notice on page three that the B-17s have tricycle landing gear?

TM

lol I noticed that too.

[Steve Nelson]

What's the publication date? I notice that on the final page the B-17 is sporting post-1947 insignia, and the cover has a seal of approval from the Comics Code Authority, which was established in 1954.

Typical melodrama, and the artist apparently only had a couple of blurry photos of a B-17 to work from. Still, for what it is, it's pretty cool. I remember reading similar stuff as a kid, although by then (early 70s) the country was deeply divided over Viet Nam and military comics were rather frowned upon.

SN

[The Inspector]

Top of Shays title post says 1959-I was about 12 and starting to transition into cars and serious aviation and kinda losing my 'EW! Cooties' attitude towards girls but this was the kind of stuff that stirred pre -adolescents freshly created juices, and darn the two bladed props and 'why are the bombs under the flight deck?' and a tail position big enough to double date in-I'm lovin' this!! Too bad kids today (or in the future either) will never experience this level of visceral aggitation. they aren't even taught cursive writing anymore, 'signatures' in the future should be really interesting.

[K5DH]

All the B-17s I've crewed and worked on had the #2 engine on the LEFT wing and had props with THREE blades. Still, an interesting and dramatic story!

Keep 'em coming!

[JohnTerrell]

I love these old comic-book illustrations of WWII-era aircraft. The artists weren't like the profile and fine-art artists of today, researching the aircraft to death, to ensure perfection and accuracy - there was no such need/importance for it. In most cases, these illustrations of a B-17 were a mixture of mostly memory, with a side of imagination - not even so much as working from a photo. I used to do this a lot when I was young (about 6-10)- hanging out at the airport for a few hours, and then spending the rest of the day at home drawing the aircraft as I had remembered seeing them - not always getting all of the details correct, but you could at least tell what aircraft were depicted.

Thank you for sharing, Shay!

[Chris Brame]

"So, Captain, what's the price of a -"
"$276,000.00 not including government furnished equipment, all right? SHADDUP ALREADY!!!"

[JDK]

Entertaining!

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - Current equally accurate and hysterically over the top B-17 graphic art story.

Found here: http://xplanes.tumblr.com/post/77376679 ... 335-reblog

More here: http://jackienoname.wordpress.com/2011/ ... continued/

The European bande dessinée (BD for short) tradition has a strong, current scene of high quality and accurate graphic art featuring (among much else) a great range of aviation stories, and an annual event at the Musee de l'Air near Paris.

http://www.bdnet.com/

http://www.museeairespace.fr/la-bd-pren ... -2010.html

[Shay]

I'm glad you all are enjoying it. Yes there a lot "boo boo's". It's kind of the fun part. I would imagine the target audience for the time was less critical. But then again i'm sure more that a few kid's dads were former Fortress crews and picked the comic apart in just the same way. Still as some are mentioning, it still gives you the same feeling as it did when we were kids. I grew up primarily reading 80's and 90's comics and buying 2nd hand 70's comics. The artistry at that time was on par with the 1950's you see here. I don't think it wasn't til the 90's that you started seeing more of finer printing and artistry.

What i want to know is how you survive a B-17 lawn dart into the ground?

Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[The Inspector]

When they were younger (now mid to late 30's) I had both kids watch Warner Bros. cartoons from the 40's on TV and pointed out the shading and motion and backgrounds in them contrasted to the three cell stick figures for motion that were on Saturday morning TV then when every hero was 'Defender of the Universe" (I always wonderd why no one ever wanted to be DeBumper or DeTrunk Lid of the Universe?)
They got it, they get it, and now I see them doing the same things with their kids and Saturday morning cartoons. There is some hope-

[p51]

I love these old comic-book illustrations of WWII-era aircraft. The artists weren't like the profile and fine-art artists of today, researching the aircraft to death, to ensure perfection and accuracy - there was no such need/importance for it.

True, and they cranked them out like a factory. Odd as it may be to believe, the big names of their day made next to no money doing it, there wasn't any big paychecks for these guys...