Greetings Loyal Airmen, what with the big 70th birthday bash behind us, it was time for the Air Chief to roll up his sleeves and get back to work in Hangar 27.  Lots of great pulp and comic projects still to get out before the end of the year.

Happily the mail flight dropped off a big box the other day containing our copies of THE GUNS OF THE BLACK BAT # 3 from Moonstone Comics.  This is the third and final issue of this mini featuring the Black Bat and lots of guest pulp heroes. Script by the Air Chief with amazing art by Sylvestre Szilagyi of Argentina. Fingers crossed you Loyal Airmen should see this in your comic shops in another few weeks.

Another fun happening, Airship 27 Productions has just released its third Kindle-Only project, “The Adventures of Lance Star – Sky Ranger,” by Bobby Nash. Over the past ten years, Bobby has had a story in each of the four Lance Star anthologies we’ve published (all still available at Amazon in both paperback and on Kindle).  Now Bobby is putting the finishing touches  on the first ever full length Lance Star novel we hope to have out early in 2017.  To help promote that title, we thought it would be fun to collect all of Bobby’s four stories in one digital collection and thus this Kindle Only title.  Note, our two previous Kindle Only books were Sherlock Holmes Mysteries, Vol 1 collecting I.A. Watson’s tales and Vol 2 bringing together many of Aaron Smith’s stories.  If you’re a Kindle reader, we hope you’ll give this high flying collection a try.

A few years ago the Air Chief met writer Shawn Gustafson at a local convention. Shawn is a talented comic writer who does a webstrip called THE SPECIALISTS with his artist partner, Al Kukalek.  After that initial meeting, Shawn was decent enough to give us copies of the early issues and we were hooked immediately. The Specialists takes place during World War II and deals with American super powered heroes battling super powered Nazi agents. It is tons of fun. So when Shawn and Al, after five years worth of weekly strips, opted to collect them all into one huge ominbus, they came to the Air Chief asking if we’d write an introduction. We were only too honored to do so. This wonderful hardback is now out and on sale at their website (www.TheSpecialistsComic.com) and we truly can’t recommend it enough. This is what good comics look like today. Please, take a look and give these talented guys your support. They truly deserve it.

Finally, the big news of the past week was that veteran action director, Gavin O’Connor and his production partner have acquired the rights, through Paramount Studios, to the Green Hornet and plan on making a much darker and more realistic film.  O’Connor’s latest effort was the well received “The Accountant,” with Ben Afflect.  A huge fan of the Green Hornet all his life, O’Connor was upset, like most of us, with the recent Seth Rogen comedy version and when Universal allowed their rights to expire, jump at the chance to procure them.  Although not officially announced, some of the Air Chief’s sources say O’Connor has plans for three films as a series.  His version of the character will be a modern one centering around the hero’s journey of self discovery.  What with our noticeable connection to this character, the Air Chief has no idea if O’Connor ever read our Now Comics run on the Green Hornet.  But we are certainly happy with the idea of a “serious” movie on the character.  All fingers are crossed.

Thanks for stopping by as ever,

Ron – Over & Out!