Barry Blair and Aircel Comics

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Independent,

Barry Blair passed away earlier this week. A very talented writer-and-artist, he was one of the founders of Aircel Comics with the backing of Ken Campbell. The imprint got its name from Campbell’s refrigeration company. Barry had a house stockpiled with a number of artists eager to create comics and they were all put to work churning out books for Aircel with titles like Elflord, Samurai and Warlock 5.

For a couple of years their books were very successful and featured work by Blair, Pat McEown, Dale Keown, Dave Cooper, Jim Somerville, Guang Yap and others during the black and white boom of the mid-1980s. When the market soured, Campbell was eager to shed the imprint. Rather than shut it down, he made a deal with Malibu Comics President Scott Rosenberg to take it over. Malibu was the parent company to Eternity Comics.

As part of the deal, Malibu would run the imprint and Barry would provide 4 books a month - a new book every Tuesday either by him or his studiomates or in some form of collaboration. In addition, Malibu would also sponsor Barry’s green card - he wanted to move out of Canada to New York City and found a place in the shadow of the United Nations building. For a couple of years, Malibu published a wide variety of Aircel books - Barry’s own adventure books, Dave Cooper’s wild parodies, and even a Jim Somerville zombie book.

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