Greetings Loyal Airmen, over the years, as a writer of comics, the Air Chief has come to appreciate more and more the value of what good lettering brings to a comic project.  Now finding ourselves teaching comics scripting, that value in our own estimation continues to grow.  You see, at its core, a comic book is about two sensibilities, tell a story with words (literature) and pictures (art).  The two are combined when a letterer reads the writer’s scripts and then taking the artist’s page, adds the captions and word balloons.

Above is the first page of our latest Captain Jain Marlee – Space Smuggler – adventure, “Fugitive Prince.” The art is by the amazing Richard Jun. Now on the left above is Richard’s completed artwork based on our script.  Lettering the project is a new talent, Ms. Elisa St. John who we met very recently. Elisa loves comics and wants to be a professional letterer. Impressed by her work, we recruited her for this project and above on the left is the same page now with Elisa’s amazing lettering.  NOW…it is really a comic page. These are the little things we do our best to teach our new writers.  Without decent lettering, you’ve got nothing.

And speaking of our teaching, back in Nov the Air Chief wrapped up his third such writing class.  As ever, we are now putting together a new issue of FRONT RANGE TALES, the comic completely written by our students.  Today artist pal Rob Davis turned in the first page to the story penned by student Gabriella Saenz.  At 13, Gabriella is the youngest student we ever had the fun of working with. She is such a talented young lady.  With fingers crossed the finished new issue, the largest we’ve ever put together, will be out in early Feb. 2019.  Stay tuned.

Long…long…ago, our oldest granddaughter, Kristi, started reading the Harry Potter books. It didn’t take her long to us hooked on the series and for series it was something special we shared.  We mentioned a few podcast back that in late Oct, the Air Chief and Valerie finally made it down to Harry Potter World in Florida. While there the Air Chief spotted these authentic school robes as worn by the students and teachers at Hogworts Wizarding School. And we had to have one.  Now it hangs proudly in our office, a reminder of a wonderful series, a loving granddaughter and the magic of the imaginations.

And that’s our Flight Log for this week. Hope all you Loyal Airmen are enjoying this wonderful holiday season. See you back here next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!