''Barney Baxter in the Air'' is an American comic strip by

Frank Miller Frank Miller (born January 27, 1957) is an American comic book writer, penciller and inker, novelist, screenwriter, film director, and producer known for his comic book stories and graphic novels such as his run on ''Daredevil'' and subsequen ...

. It started its run on September 30, 1935, for the Denver's ''

Rocky Mountain News The ''Rocky Mountain News'' (nicknamed the ''Rocky'') was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States, from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As ...

''. Starting on December 7, 1936, it was syndicated by

King Features King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial ...

. ''Barney Baxter'' was an "adventure strip" involving heroic exploits centering on aviation.

Maurice Horn Maurice Horn (born 1931) is a French-American comics historian, author, and editor, considered to be one of the first serious academics to study comics. He is the editor of ''The World Encyclopedia of Comics'', ''The World Encyclopedia of Cartoon ...

,''Women in the Comics''. New York :Chelsea House Publishers, 1977. (p.117)

Ron Goulart Ronald Joseph Goulart (; January 13, 1933 – January 14, 2022) was an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy, and science fiction author. He published novelizations and other work under various pseudonyms: Kenneth Robeson, Co ...

, ''The Encyclopedia of American Comics''. New York : Facts on File, 1990. (pp. 19-20) The strip was drawn by Miller until 1943 when Bob Naylor took over the duties for a short period. In 1943, the title was shortened to ''Barney Baxter''. Miller returned to the strip in 1946. The strip was discontinued by King Features on January 22, 1950, following Miller's death on March 12, 1949.

Characters and story

Young aviator Barney Baxter experienced numerous airborne adventures, and during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, he battled both German and Japanese villains. Baxter was often accompanied by his sidekick Gopher Gus, who (unlike the rest of the characters) was drawn with the exaggerated facial features of a "humour strip" character. Other characters were Barney's mother, his rival love interests, Patricia and Maura, and his buddy Hap Walters. Comic strip historian Don Markstein noted: :Barney wasn't your standard pretty-boy hero. He was a bit on the short side and pudgy. His face looked kind of lumpy and was covered with freckles. He didn't have a big, toothy grin—in fact, he didn't smile very much at all. Of course, he wasn't downright ugly—his pal, Gopher Gus, a desert rat turned pilot, was the ugly one. His other pal, Hap Walters, a sometime-girlfriend named Patricia and Barney's mom rounded out the cast. They had one thrilling adventure after another, fighting spies,

air pirates The Air Pirates were a group of cartoonists who created two issues of an underground comic called ''Air Pirates Funnies'' in 1971, leading to a famous lawsuit by Walt Disney Productions. Founded by Dan O'Neill, the group also included Bobby Lo ...

, Latin American warlords and, when the time came, Nazis and Japs; and they kept it up for almost a decade and a half. The cartoonist behind Barney and his entourage was Frank Miller—but not the Frank Miller who became famous decades later for his work on '' Elektra'', '' Batman'' and ''

Sin City ''Sin City'' is a series of neo-noir comics by American comic book writer-artist Frank Miller. The first story originally appeared in ''Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special'' (April 1991), and continued in ''Dark Horse Presents'' #51� ...

''. This Frank Miller was born in 1898 and spent his early thirties working on staff at Denver's ''Rocky Mountain News''. There, he created ''Barney'' in 1935 for the paper's "Junior Aviator" page. At first the hero was a boy just entering his teens, who had a burning interest in airplanes; but the series took a more adventurous turn when a grown-up aviator named Cyclone Smith took him (with Mom's permission) on a trip to Alaska. By the time Barney got home, he was a seasoned crime fighter. ''Barney Baxter in the Air'' (as the strip was originally called—it dropped the last part in 1943) had been running a little more than a year when Miller moved East to work at

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...

's ''New York Mirror''; and from then on, Barney was no longer a one-paper strip. Starting in December, 1936, it was distributed by Hearst's King Features Syndicate. By that time, Barney had rapidly aged to about his late teens or early twenties. Miller's plots moved fast enough to keep most readers from noticing the occasionally large holes in them.''Barney Baxter in the Air''
at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
from the original on February 22, 2018.

References

External links

{{King Features Syndicate Comics 1935 comics debuts 1950 comics endings Adventure comics American comics characters American comic strips Aviation comics Comics characters introduced in 1935 Fictional aviators Male characters in comics