Greetings Loyal Airmen, things are really heating about around the old Hangar 27 with our releasing our second book in two weeks.  This one is a western based on the Spaghetti westerns of the late actor Lee Van Cleef.

A few years ago our good friend Rick Lai approached us at the Windy City Pulp and Paper convention to discuss the possibilities of doing an anthology series based on the bounty hunter character played by Van Cleef in several of these Italian westerns. In a few he was called Sabatta, where else something else in others. Ergo, the Air Chief suggested to Rick that he come up with a new original name and we’d go from there.  Once Major Sabbath had been agreed upon, Rick did up a bible for the series and we put it out to our stable of writers.  Happily, two of the best signed on to write stories featuring this character; Erik Franklin and Frank Schildiner.  Then Rick turned in bible into an extra long essay on Van Cleef’s career in these movies and we added that to the package.  Today it was released at Amazon in paperback and will soon be available in Kindle.  Michael Dean Jackson provided the interior illustrations and the amazing Pat Carbajal did that terrific cover above.  We hope you’ll check it out.

One of the things the Air Chief has always appreciated about comic art is how different each artist approached interpreting a script.  Several years ago, we gave artist Shannon Hall a copy of our script “A Cold Demise” to illustrate. At the time it was our latest Captain Jain Marlee sci-fi short.  Shannon went right to town and delivered the first page in just a few weeks. Then, sadly, unexpected issues arose which demanded all his time and energies and he had to leave the project. About a year later, we connected with artist Luis Rivera on Facebook and when he asked about doing something with us, we offered him “The Cold Demise” script.  He finished all 8 pages within a month’s time.  And it was fantastic.  It has since been printed in several black and white comic anthologies and even appeared in full color in another.  The other day, Shannon dropped us a line reminding me of this page he’d done and we immediately pulled it up along aside that done by Luis.  (See above, Shannon to the left, Luis to the right.) Both worked from the exact same script but interpreted the scenes in totally different ways.  Truly fascinating and both work beautifully, in our opinion, conveying the opening of the story with fun and drama. Honestly, we love them both equally and thought it would fun to share them with you Loyal Airmen.  Hopefully in the not too distant future, the Air Chief hopes to do another project with Shannon, one that will reach completion and meanwhile, Luis is now in New Jersey attending the prestigious Joe Kubert School of Graphic Art.  We predict a truly bright future for this super talented comic book artist.

Meanwhile Airship 27 Production’s own Art Director, Rob Davis, continues to do double duty as the Art Designer for the Brother Bones movie by drawing up characters sketches.  His two most recent include Cape Noire’s gangland boss, Topper Wyld, and his right hand man, killer Harry Beest. These sketches help the producers both with the casting of actors for each roles plus also aid the costume people in how these people dressed back in the 1930s.  Rob is doing a fantastic job with these.

Valerie and the Air Chief finally got around to seeing the latest DC flick, “Suicide Squad” the other day.  Note, the Air Chief doesn’t see every single comic book movie, allow us some taste and discrimination.  We avoided the last “Fantastic Four,” “Deadpool” and “Superman vs Batman.”  Decisions that haven’t cost us a single sleepless night.  Whereas “Suicide Squad” was an old comic title we once collected and hearing the multitude of mixed reviews, we decided this one we’d check out for ourselves.  Particularly since the movie featured one of our all time favorite female comic book characters…KATANA.  Sure, we know all the hype as been on Harley Quinn and honestly, she is the star of this ensemble actioner, even eclipsing Will Smith.  But that’s neither here nor there.  For, as we said earlier, we’ve always been a huge fan of the Oriental Dynamo created by our pal, writer Mike Barr.  Whenever she showed up on any of the Batman animated series, we were there applauding loudly.  Now, knowing she was going “live” in a big-budget summer movie. There was no way we were missing that debut.  And quite frankly, she totally rocks!!!  The rest of the movie could have laid a dozen goose eggs and been horrible (which is isn’t) and we’d still be happy.  That was our Katana on the silver screen and the Air Chief has all fingers crossed we’ll be seeing lots more of her in future installments.  Oh, yeah.

And there you have our Flight Log for this week, Loyal Airmen.  As ever thanks for stopping by and we’ll b e back next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!