Number 729



Airboy and the Great Plane From Nowhere!


The Great Plane referred to on the cover of Airboy, Volume 8 Number 5 from 1951, isn't really from "nowhere." It's from another planet. It's a city-sized airplane carrying surviving members of a civilization looking for a new home. There's no explanation as to how it got to Earth on propeller power.

Flying saucers were big stuff in the late '40s and '50s, and as a kid I read everything I could about them. Books on flying saucers sometimes mentioned motherships, which brought the saucer craft to Earth, and that's what the Great Plane is.

The artwork is by Ernest Schroeder, who had a nice illustrative style even if the eyeballs on his characters look weird. What the hell. I like weird.