Greetings Loyal Airmen, as you can see by the photo above, the Rob Davis and the Air Chief once again were part of the fun that is the Windy City Pulp & Paper convention that is held every Spring in Chicago. This year was no exception to the great show it was.

Lots and lots of vendors were on hand to sell their treasures from old time paperbacks to….

…classic pulps and the New Pulp variety as demonstrated by our pal, Tommy Hancock.  We saw so many of our old friends and as ever made lots of new ones.

One of the people responsible for this great show every year is Doug Ellis, himself a collector of pulp art.  Here he is checking off a list of new acquired pieces.

A Friday night Windy City tradition is a bunch of us heading out to a hamburger joint known as Fudruckers and this year six of us were chowing down together. on the left (from to back) is Van Plexico, Gene Moyers, and the Air Chief, while to our right (again front to back) Rob Davis, Wayne Reinagel & Tommy Hancock.)

Of course one of the highlights of the show is on Friday night with the Air Chief and Rob get to announce this year’s winners of the Pulp Factory Awards and hand out their actual awards.  Winning for Best Pulp Cover was the amazing Michael Kaluta and his cover painting to Airship 27 Production’s “Towers of Metropolis.”

Best Pulp Novel went to “Sentinels – The Dark Crusade,” by writer Van Allen Plexico and Best Interior Illustrations went to Chris Kohler who actually did the illos for this book.

The Best Anthology went to “Singularity – Rise of the Post Humans,” from Pro Se Productions, edited by Jaime Ramos.  That’s Jaime to the right above.  And the Best Pulp Short Story went to writer David Michelinie for “Lord Pemberton’s Adjustment Service” which appeared in that very book.  David is on the left above, and of course standing proudly between them is Pro Se publisher, Tommy Hancock. Our heartfelt congratulations to all this year’s winners, they were all well deserved.

With the con behind us, it is time to get back to work and Airship 27 Productions hits the ground running with our latest volume (# 9) of SHERLOCK HOLMES – Consulting Detective.  This one features a fantastic cover by the amazing Adam Shaw with stories by Aaron Smith, Erik Franklin, Fred Adams Jr. & Ian Watson. Our bestselling series to date, now available from Amazon and soon on Kindle.

And there you have it, Loyal Airmen.  Thanks again for stopping by and we’ll see you all back here next week.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, by the time you read this, the Air Chief and his partner, Rob Davis, will be in Chicago attending the annual Windy City Pulp & Paper convention, which is one of the highlights of pulp fandom every year. We hope to see many of our Loyal Airmen on hand, as we’ve tons of great new titles to showcase.  So if you are attending the show, please do stop by and say hi.

On a sadder note, today, April 15th, we just learned of the passing of a really wonderful guy, a friend who was instrumental in helping the Air Chief attain his dream of becoming a comic book writer. When we came home from the army in 1968, we wanted to get back into comic collecting with the idea of learning the business.  We found several fanzines, amateur magazines made by young writers and artists with similar goals as ours.  The best of these was called THE COMIC CRUSADER and it was published by Massachusetts native, Martin Greim.  We sent away for it and became enthusiastic fans.  We soon were corresponding with Martin on a regular basis and he ended up publishing our interview with the then new pro artist Joe Staton. It was our first published comic related piece. A few years later, with Martin’s support, we attend a Boston comic con, met personally and cemented our friendship. Martin’s passing saddens us greatly. Rest in peace, old friend. God bless you for your kindness, friendship and encouragement along the way. Our deepest condolences to your family and legion of friends.  The photo above was taken long ago, about the time we knew each other.

As a comic book writer, the Air Chief has had the pleasure of working with some of the best graphic artists in the world, including our Airship 27 Productions Art Director Rob Davis.  At present, Rob’s been working on a new, one shot comic project we put together a few years ago.  At the time we had another artist on board, but he had to bow out and Rob graciously opted to take on the drawing chores. The Air Chief couldn’t have been happier.  Of course with all his other responsibilities, Rob is chipping away at the project whenever he can and this past weekend turned in as yet another stellar completed page.  Thought showing it to you wouldn’t be giving away too much.  We will say its an action packed adventure featuring a classic pulp hero from the 30s.  When finished we will publish it via Rob’s Redbud Studio.  Enjoy the sneak peek.

For all of you who stop by every week, you know we’ve been doing our best to keep you updated on the Brother Bones movie now in pre-production from Franklin & Husser Entertainment LLC.  Several weeks ago we displayed several pencil sketches turned in by movie sculpture Josh Tavena of Beardless Props.  Josh took his inspiration from the various pieces of published Brother Bones artwork including the above beauty by artist Pat Carbajal.  Well, as you can see via the image beside the drawing, Josh has completed work on the mask sculpture and all of us are terribly excited. He totally captured the true essence of Brother Bones. Next he will be molding the actual mask and painting it. This will be the mask worn by the yet cast actor who will portray our Undead Avenger in the film. We will continue to keep you all posted.

Finally, in the hustle and bustle of the past few weeks, we totally forgot to tell you about this fantastic book that was just released two weeks ago. Last year writer Billie Rae Bates contacted the Air Chief to tell us she was writing what would be the most definitive book about the 1960s Green Hornet television. Her book would contain the history of the character from his radio start back at WXYZ in Detroit, to the two Universal Serials and then ultimately the TV show. Then the remainder of the book would deal with the affects that one season series had on fans, thus reaching out to creation of the 1990s Green Hornet comic series from Now Comics which we wrote. Billie and the Air Chief spoke on the phone for nearly two hours at the end of which, she promised that once the book was finished, we’d be getting a copy as thanks for our assistance. Well that book is now out, called, “LET’S ROLL, KATO, A Guide to TV’s The Green Hornet,” it is a whopping 481 pages and does everything Billie said it would. There is absolutely no facet of this wonderful television series left untouched, from the plots each episode, the bios of the producers and actors, it’s all here, in this truly amazing tome. Along with almost all our two hour conversation, whereas the Air Chief’s thoughts are scattered throughout the second half of the book.  Honestly, Loyal Airmen, if you are a real fan of the Green Hornet and Kato, we recommend you go out and buy a copy. It is something you will pick up time and time again.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  Hopefully once back from Chicago, we’ll have pix fro the con. Take care and as ever thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, by the time this new entry post, there hopefully will have been several new announcements concerning Brother Bones; one dealing with the movie in production and the other concerning as yet a new Brother Bones comic project.  The comic project refers to the agreement the Air Chief has made with Lucky Comics publisher John Helmer.  We’ve written an 8 pg origin primer John was to have finished and available for Free Comic Book Day, the first Sat of May. The artist for the series will be Argentinian artist Flavio Silva and there will be two different covers. Flavio will do one and Rob Davis the other. Above are two of Rob’s latest sketches featuring the Undead Avenger. Most likely one of these will be finalized as his cover. Stay tuned, we’ll be sure to keep you all posted.

Airship 27 Productions’ latest title was released this past week as well. It is Volume 4 of MYSTERY MEN ( & Women) the anthology series which focuses on brand new pulp heroes created by today’s best writers. In this issue we four tales by B.C. Bell, Thomas Deja, Joel Jenkins and C. William Russette. Rob provides the interior illustrations while Zach Brunner’s spooky cover features Deja’s hero, the Ferryman.  Now available at Amazon in paperback and soon on Kindle. We hope you’ll check it out.

Although we haven’t mentioned it lately, we’d like to remind all you Loyal Airmen that the good folks at Radio Archives continue to adapt all our fine Airship 27 novels and anthology books into audio books and make them available via Amazon through (www.Audible.com).  This past week alone they released, The Phantom Detective Vol One and Lance Star – Sky Ranger Vol 3.  Radio Archives voice actor readers are the best in the business and if you enjoy audio books on those long road trips or daily commutes, we’d hope you might check them out.  Again, simply got to (www.Audible.com) and write the words AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS and see what pops up.  You just might be pleasantly surprised.  This far all three Brother Bones have been done, with voice actor Scott Bennett and the first Captain Hazzard novel concerning the Air Chief’s own titles.

And that’s it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  Before signing off we’d like to wish all of you and your loved ones a wonderful and blessed HAPPY EASTER!!  As ever thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we’re thrilled this week as the 2017 Baseball season got under way this past Monday and our beloved Red Sox won their Fenway opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates 5 – 3.  The Sox have a solid team this year and with the addition of pitcher Chris Sales to the rotation, joining David Price and last year’s Cy Young Award Winner Rick Porcello, it’s looking good from the pitchers mound. The team has a nice balance of super talented young players and some tested veterans to help guide them along. Anyway, hearing the cry of “Play ball!” always puts a smile on the Air Chief’s face. Summer is just around the corner now.  Bring it on.

The one of the many comic projects the Air Chief is currently involved with is an 8 pg anthropomorphic fantasy adventure called “The Wooden Sword” and features a sword wielding ram named Raizee. The art is by a talented young lady named Oliva DeGaine, a graduate of the Joe Kubert School of Graphics Arts.  She and her husband, Zane, met at the school and he also is an amazing artist. Was our good fortune that they moved here to Fort Collins last year and we finally crossed paths. Now they are both involved with our involved comics community and in one of those meetings, Olivia and the Air Chief started talking about working together. The result of that was “The Wooden Sword” and believe me, we are thrilled with how beautiful she is bring it to life. We’ll keep you posted as to when it is completed and where it will see print.

And here’s some more wonderful comics news. In the past couple of years. the Air Chief and his pal, Bill Gladman, have written three comic books featuring Detroit private eye, Simon Pryce under the series title, “Price For The Asking.” The plan all along was to do the three individual titles and then collect them all. Well Redbud Studio owner/managing editor Rob Davis has finally brought that about as you can see by the gorgeous cover above, which he did by the way.  We opted to change the title for the collection and with fingers crossed the book will be available at Amazon by the end of this weekend.  Besides having been written by Bill and yours truly, the artist involved were Brian Latimer, Rob and Barry McClain and the book also contains two prose short stories. If you are a fan of private eye mysteries, we hope you’ll give this a look-see.

Finally we’re in the final stages of completing issue # 15 of our Mr. Jigsaw Man of a Thousand Parts comic series. This issue will be feature a great cover by artist Darren Goodhart and here’s a sneak-peek at his early pencils. Hopefully the finished book will be available in just another couple of weeks. Stay tuned.  And as ever, thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, and welcome back to our last Flight Log of March. Amazing just how fast time is flying by, isn’t it?  We want to kick off this week’s entry with something truly special.

Last the world of pulp fandom lost one of its most affable and loving souls, writer-editor Robert Weinberg. A few months back, Doug Ellis, a good friend of Bob’s had the idea of putting together a tribute book which would include many of Bob’s past essays on collecting authentic pulp artwork. At the same time Doug invited folks with personal memoirs of Bob to write them up and send them along for inclusion. The Air Chief hasn’t often spoken about exactly how we found ourselves involved with pulps. That story indeed revolves around Bob Weinberg and so we sat down and wrote a small two page report on how it was Bob got us involved with pulp fandom, introduced us to a fantastic new world of literature which in the end resulted in the birth of Airship 27 Productions. We are proud to say that little essay is a part of this new book. And isn’t that cover by Douglas Klauba fantastic. That’s Bob and his wife Phillis in a Weird Tales homage. The book will be on sale at this year’s Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention and you can bet the Air Chief will be the first in line to buy a copy.

Whereas things have been slow the past few weeks on both the pulp and comics front, one thing the Air Chief is truly excited about this start of the new baseball season in just a few more days. And our beloved Red Sox look to be fielding a really talented squad this year, building on their rookie position players and having added a quality pitcher like Chris Sale to an already solid rotation.  So it was kind of fun to see the above photo plastered up on Facebook this week…and we just had to share it with you as how to wear a proper cap has been a pet peeve of ours for a long-long time. And that illustration above nails it perfectly, all bills should be rounded comfortably in this manner…whereas the flat bill looks stupid, as if the wearer has no clue as to what he is doing.  And you’ll note it is very much ONLY young pitchers who go the flat bill route as if it is some kind of rebel statement they are making to the world at large. Sorry youngsters, again, all you are doing is showing a real lack of cool.  Nuff said.

Finally we wanted to leave you with a really awesome drawing of all the classic Universal Monsters done by our good buddy artist Jeff Butler.  Jeff is such an amazing talent and it was the Air Chief’s joy to work with him for several years on Now Comics Green Hornet series.  Jeff now teaches art a college in the midwest and he’s obviously still has creative as ever.

And that’s a wrap for this week, Loyal Airmen.  As always, thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you back here next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out.

Greetings Loyal Airmen, well after weeks of hyping it, we finally have completed the novel adaptation of R.A. Jones’ and Rob Davis’ comicbook series.  Whereas Rob did the interiors, we early on recruited to Canadian artist Ted Hammond to do the finished cover. But for that to happen, we followed an old familiar path.

Initially Rob had done up full body character sketch showing off her costumes and weapons.  Those see at above left.  This is how he dressed her in his interior illustrations. For ideas on the cover he did up a quick pencil sketch showing her naked from the backside and wielding her sharp deadly bow stick. We thought this was a good start but needed some fine tuning.

We looked at old Scimidar comic covers and found one with her uniform badly torn up after a fight and suggested Rob, while keeping the same composition, put her in that ripped up costume and bloody the bow, indicating she had just survived a deadly fight.

Satisfied with that image, Rob then handed it off to Ted. A few days later Ted turned in his own detailed black and white drawing and we knew immediately we had a winner. He then proceeded to color it and turned it in for Rob to aid our logo, the title and author’s name…and voila, another Airship 27 classic pulp cover. The Air Chief tips his cap to both Rob and Ted for delivering a real gem. Meanwhile, as indicated above, the book is now on sale at Amazon in paperback and soon on Kindle. We hope you’ll check it out.

Finally, for all our Captain Action fans out there, the long awaited third volume in the series begun by writer Jim Beard is on its way.  The manuscript, co-authored by popular new pulp writer Barry Reese, arrived at Hangar 27 HQ this afternoon. As the editor, the Air Chief is most anxious to dig into this culminating chapter of the trilogy begun several years ago. Stay tuned for more updates as we move along with this new book.

And that’s a wrap for this week Loyal Airmen, as ever, thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you back here next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we’ve got some really fun stuff to bring you this week, especially in regards to production of the Brother Bones movie.

As one would expect, one of the most crucial elements in bringing the Undead Avenger to the the silver screen will be dressing him properly and no item of his outfit is more crucial than his skull mask. Believe us, we’ve seen it done in so many different ways and lots of them way off the mark. Above is Bones’ artist Rob Davis’ interpretation and one of the best. In fact Rob did up the model sheets for the movie’s pre-production and now producers Erik Franklin and Daniel Husser have hired a sculpture to make that eerie skull mask.

Josh Tavena of Beardless Props, the hired sculpture began by doing up three sketches of the mask in various ways for all of us to look at.  After some deliberation, the Air Chief, Rob and all involved went with version B as it most resembles that seen in Rob’s illustrations.

Next came the practical concept of how the mask, when completed, would stay firmly on the actor’s face. In the end it was decided a leather strap would be fashioned to do that job. Note, in the stories, Bones’ mask remains in place magically with any such attachments, ergo, the strap itself will be hidden with various movie tricks so that it is never visible in any given shot.

Having chosen which model we wanted, and how to make it work, step two moves into final stage of defining the features, ala the long forehead which needs to be fitted perfectly over the actor’s face as to allow Brother Bones’ slouch hat to fit over it snugly and comfortably.  Believe me Loyal Airmen, seeing all this come to fruition has the Air Chief really excited these days.  We’ll share further updates as they become available.

On other fronts, one of Airship 27 Productions continuing best selling series is our SHERLOCK HOLMES – Consulting Detective and the Air Chief is happy to announce Vol. 9 of that series is now in full production. It will contain stories by Erik Franklin, Fred Adams Jr, I.A. Watson and Aaron Smith. Above is one of Rob Davis’ eleven interior illustrations that will grace this volume. It will also feature a truly gorgeous cover by Adam Shaw. Stay tuned for more as the book nears publication.

Finally, while back one of the Air Chief’s friends, artist Marco Santiago offered to do a pin-up of Sister Blood, the sexy vampire from our Brother Bones stories. We love Marco’s work and told him we’d love to see what he could do with her. Well, he wrapped up his pencils and then his friend, Roberto Ferreira inked it all above into the piece you see above. We absolutely love it. Thanks Marco & Roberto, great job.

And that’s it for this week, Loyal Airmen, as ever thanks so much for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, this week we’re kicking of things with sharing the amazing photo above. Shortly after moving here to Fort Collins, the Air Chief met fellow writers Mike Baron and Todd Jones. Through them and the local comic shop, we discovered there were quite a few comic creators living in this wonderful town as the weeks went by, we slowly got to meet quite a few. Enough so that one day, the Air Chief had the idea of inviting seven of them to have breakfast together at a local restaurant on the first Sat of the month. We tagged the group The Fort Collins Comics Coffee Clutch Crew and we’ve been meeting at a local deli now for almost seven years…and as you can see by the photo above, our ranks have swelled. Present in this photo are 22 of us….and there were at least four members not in attendance this month.  Yup, that’s one happy bunch of comic creators.  If you look at the photo closely, at center front, is a Shaundra Shultz, and children’s book painter, she has blond hair…over her left shoulder, in an Army green long sleeve tee-shirt is the Air Chief. Honestly, these get togethers are so much for all of us.

Meanwhile artist Kevin Johnson, our partner on the BLACK LION comics series is studying animation and has begun work on a digital 3-D model of our hero. We think he is doing a truly amazing job with this.

In a follow up to our lead topic concerning the huge gathering last weekend of the Fort Collins Comics Coffee Clutch Crew, we began re-evaluating the situation. If you look at that top picture carefully, you’ll note that our members pretty much take up almost half the floor space of that deli, what with pushing all those small tables and chairs together to accommodate us all properly. Well, as it turns out, that pix now shows our last official meeting at this venue. A few days ago the Air Chief spoke with the owners of Gryphons Games & Comics here in Fort Collins. It is the city’s premier comic shot and a big store with multiple private rooms where gaming tournaments are held plus their giant comic retail area and…they even have a cafe that serves drinks and sandwiches. We connected with the owners, had a very pleasant conversation and when it was over they had invited us to hold our monthly breakfast meetings at their story.  Yup, so a group of comic creators will now be getting together once a month at a real comic shop. Seems about time this came to pass.

Finally Brother Bones movie producers have done another video update you can find on You Tube at this link.  In which they talk about where they are at in production.      (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3iGaZiwI-Q)  All of which is really exciting.

And that, dear Loyal Airmen is a wrap for this week.  As ever thanks for stopping by and we’ll hook up again right here next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, last Sunday members of Pulp Factory Awards committee released the list of this year’s nominees on the official ballot.  We were pleased that so many Airship 27 creators and titles were listed among the five categories.

As for the Air Chief, beside being nominated for Best Anthology editing, our own “Captain Hazzard – Custer’s Ghost” was nominated for Best Pulp Novel. To say we aren’t excited would be a joke. Of course we’re terribly excited and humbled that so many of our colleagues at the Pulp Factory thought enough of the book to give it their vote. Note voting on the final ballot is open to all the public, so if you’d care to check it out and give us your support, simply log on to the link below.

(https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSehHfX7HXALCIa0Pnr1udzftHXJLBBUocBweHsxRMcpOn8kcQ/alreadyresponded?c=0&w=1)

As ever, we thank you for your support. Winners, as ever, will be announced at this year’s Windy City Pulp & Paper Con in Chicago.

Now for something truly cool. One of the fun things about Wonder Woman when she first appeared in comics was her invisible plane that she flew around in. Well some parents out there, obviously were extremely creative in building such a plane for their daughter’s role as the female superhero.  This photog appeared on FB last week and the poster suggested this little girl should win some kind of prize. We couldn’t agree more and wanted to share it with all of you.

Speaking of cool things, as many of you Loyal Airmen will recall, last November the Air Chief turned 70 and was given a surprise birthday party at the Rocky Mountain Con. One of the things presented to us was this amazing character collage done by so many of my artists pals here in Colorado which featured many of the characters we’ve written in our career.  Well, recently Valerie went and had it framed and mounted on my office wall.  Our desk is to the left of this photo and we so love coming into the office every day and seeing it there. We are truly blessed with so many wonderful and talented friends.

And now for a little sneak peek.  We are currently putting the finishing touches on our latest Airship 27 Productions pulp title, SCIMIDAR.  This one is based on the comic series that was published by Eternity comics back in the late 8Os as written by R.A. Jones and drawn by very own Art Director Rob Davis. And now SCIMIDAR is a full length pulp novel. Above is the finished back cover. Canadian Ted Hammon will be doing the front cover and with fingers crossed we should have it out in another weeks.  Until then, Rob put the back cover together and we love it.  With fingers crossed the book should be out by this time next week.

And that’s a wrap for our first March Flight Log, Loyal Airmen, as ever, thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, we got some fairly exciting news for all of you this week. As many of you already know, over a year ago the good people at Scaldcrow Games came to us with the offer to do a RPG (role playing game) module based on our Brother Bones the Undead Avenger stories. We happily agreed to joined up in this partnership. T Glenn Bane, the owner of Scaldcrow Games, then launched a Kickstarter campaign for RON FORTIER’S CAPE NOIRE, the title of the book module to solicit funds to produce the game.  Happily that campaign was very successful and they ended up collecting several hundred dollars above their target goal, funds that then went into bonus features. Thus for the past year and several months, Bane and his creative team, have been compiling all the date inherent in the Brother Bones books and comics and to produce the most definitive tome on the world of Cape Noire. Last week, Bane announced on Facebook that the final proofing had been completed and he and his co-editors were about to start laying out the actual book itself. Meaning, once assembled, they would soon start mailing out the finished volume to all our loyal fans who contributed to making this program such a huge success.  Note, aside from those ordered copies, as soon as the game is available for general sale, we’ll naturally let all you Loyal Airmen know where to you can go to pick up a copy.  As we said above, exciting times indeed.

Yesterday saw the release of Airship 27 Productions’ newest title, THE HYDE SEED by Michael Housel. This is only the second novella we’ve ever published. It’s a gripping story about an ex-boxer and his struggles with his inner demons. The stark cover above is by Ash Arceneaux with interiors by Pedro Cruz. Now available in paperback at Amazon and soon on Kindle. As ever, thanks for your support.

Finally, after almost a week of Spring time temperatures, breaking records in the high 70s etc. winter finally returned to Fort Collins today, spitting sleet and rain and dropping back down into the 40s.  Above is a shot of Old Town in with icy roads and snow covered trees. That’s winter in the Rockies, Loyal Airmen, unpredictable from day to day.  Thanks ever for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!