Greetings Loyal Airmen, here we are going into Halloween weekend and the Air Chief is excited as ever to enjoy this fun holiday. Again we’ll be guest, along with other comic creators, at Gryphon’s Games & Comics here in Fort Collins, CO, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. tomorrow, Sat Oct 28th.  The Air Chief will be donning his new top hat for the very first time. Hope to see you lots of local fans and friends. Meanwhile the unpacking in the new house, and new office, continues smoothly.

In the process of going through boxes of things not opened in years, we discovered lots of old comic book ideas that either received very little distribution or where never actually published.  Take the three images above, going left to right.  Black Betty was the idea for a private eye inspired by Queen Latifah, pro artist Dario Carrasco did this presentation page and there actually was a short 8 page strip finished by another artist that never saw print. Then we have Temple & Nash, a cops melodrama created for publisher Tracy Duty’s short lived Comics-For-A-Buck idea. It was 16 pgs and blackand white and this first tale had the cops, a veteran detective and his rookie female partner, on the hunt for serial killer in Tampa. The comic appeared as a mini and maybe a hundred copies were printed and sold during its short existence. Finally we have Satin’s Ways, the concept of a Honk Kong born jewel thief named Satin Wei who moves to Seattle to retire from her line of illegal work.  Gonzalo Martinez was the artist on board and the Air Chief had written a 48 pg debut story. As he was warming up for that project, we whipped out a short 8 pager called the Perfect Murder and Martinez got it finished and it too was published, but in a black and white independent company so again few people ever saw it. And sadly, Martinez, after about a dozen pages on the big book, had to quit due to family commitments. One has to wonder if it will ever be completed?

And that’s the point of this Flight Log Loyal Airmen, because in finding these long lost pages, the Air Chief he had actually had 24 pages total.  Black Betty – 8,  Temple & Nash – 16, and Satin’s Ways 8.  In effect they would have combined to make a nice one shot comic book. Sadly there are no high resolution copies of either Temple & Nash or the Black Betty strips. So for the present we’ll contend ourselves with getting the 8 pg SATIN’S WAYS back in print. Who knows, maybe some day we can interest new artists to do new, high res versions of the other two properties. Hope does spring eternal.

Continuing this week’s Down Memory Lane theme, this coming Sunday, 29th October is the annual Portland Comic Expo in Portland, Maine, and on hand this year will be the four original founders of Maine’s once popular comics company, Alpha Productions. In the photo above taken recently, going left to right are Leni Gronros, Christopher Mills, Bob Cram and Paul Pelletier. After the company folded, both Chris and Paul went on to professional careers in the comic business. Recently it was discovered that all the pages of a super hero comic called Task Force Alpha, thought to have been destroyed in fire, were very much intact in Paul’s attic. Upon this discovery, Bob contacted Leni and plans were made to actually publish the book as a special one-shot and make it available at the con.

Paul did a brand new cover for it, and Bob assembled some added features like a new interview with the Air Chief, allowing me to recount our fun association with this team and some of the comics we created while with them, to include the leader of Task Force Alpha, Major Liberty. If any of you Loyal Airmen are anywhere in the Portland area this weekend, we urge you to check out the Expo and meet the gang. Really wish we could be there, but so happy this has finally come about.

And there you have it Loyal Airmen, Happy Halloween from Hangar 27. We’ll see you back here next week.

Ron – Over & Out!