Issue #7 of Air was released on the week of March 18th for only $1. I looked around online and saw that it had been marketed as a good jumping on point for new readers. Before I dive in to this issue, I thought that I should post about this special price. I wish that I could have posted about the $1 issue before it came out, but I’m sure copies are still available for that price at your local comic shop, if not online. Do check it out.

Though I just finished ranting about how useless an endeavor creating year-end wrap-ups and best-of lists is, I do appreciate reading them from time to time. In the case of best-of comic book lists, it gives me an idea of what collections and on-going series’ I should look into catching up on.

Comic Book Resources has compiled and released their best 100 comics of 2008 list. I’m bringing it up here because four of the five books ongoing in 2008 that I’ve recommended via Comic Tips have placed in CBR’s list. I think this is as good a time as any to say: told you so!

The four comics in CBR’s top 100 of 2008 that I’ve said you should be reading are as follows:

• #85 Dynamo 5
• #72 Echo
• #42 Air
• #08 RASL

I was absolutely thrilled to see RASL in the top ten. I’ve voiced my concerns for it and its quarterly release schedule in the past, and it’s good to see it getting some recognition for being something special. I was disappointed to not see any Jonathan Hickman books in the mix; I’d imagine that the delays affecting his books have caused many to wait for trades. I would also liked to have seen House of Mystery in the list, but everything else feels just about right.

One thing is for certain: I need to read this Criminal TPB that has been sitting on my desk for three months.

Air is a creator-owned comic published under DC Comic’s Vertigo label and written by G. Willow Wilson with art by M.K. Perker. I believe this is the second time this team has collaborated on a comic, with the first time being on the Vertigo series Cairo.

Air introduces us to an airline stewardess in a post-9/11 world named Blythe. Blythe probably shouldn’t be a stewardess; she’s so deathly afraid of flying that she has to take medication in order to keep from losing her shit on the job. Her world gets turned upside down on the day she checks the bags of a mysterious man with fleeting accents and half a dozen names. Is he friend, foe, or just a nobody? Throw in a belligerent German passenger, Blythe’s best friend Fletcher, an anti-terrorism organization called The Etesian Front, and G. Willow Wilson’s four-year road map for the series, and you’ve got Air.

Despite dealing with as serious a subject matter as international terrorism, Air manages to be romantic and whimsical, and in no small part due to the art. Turkish artist M.K. Perker has created a fan out of me with his unique style. Characters have long and well-defined features that lend themselves to conveying emotion through body language and facial expressions. This allows for a character’s demeanor to be read without words, though there are plenty of them.

Conversations in Air, however fictitious certain scenarios may be, feel real and natural. Plot also flows naturally from panel to panel, page to page, and so far for each of the four issues always a scene with something new, abstract and wonderful that catches me off guard. I love it. It’s a breath of fresh… gas.

As Air is only on issue four, your local comic shop would be the best place to find it. ScifiGenre.com, the shop I use, still shows all four issues in stock on its website. A trade paperback collecting the first five issues will be coming out in March of 2009.