Greetings Loyal Airmen, as discussed last Flight Log, Valerie and the Air Chief attended this year’s FoCo, i.e. the Fort Collins Comic Con and we had a blast. Here are few shots we took while there.

At the top tier are several pix we took from the second floor landing. In the photo (top left) you can just see Valerie by herself at our tables. So only fitting the bottom tier has a better close up of the two of us. We were in row E and happily alongside lots of our friends. To our immediate left was our dear friend, and one of my former writing students, artist Gabriella Saenz. She is a truly gifted young lady now in her first year of college and her booth was swamped with art fans the entire con. Way to go, Gaby!!

To Gaby’s left was writer (and another former student) Aaron Powers.  Aaron’s a great guy and awesome writer. He even did some work for Airship 27. To his left were the team of Byran Richardson (at left) a comics writer, and Jesse Bonafazi, (to right with Bird) of Blind Dog Custom Action Figures.  Jesse is also an artist and teaches cartooning. Seated between and he Byran is one of Jessi’s talented students.

Another guest at the show was artist Joe Arnold, who has done some amazing work in recent years including illustration Mike Baron’s terrific graphic novel, “Thin Blue Line.” Joe is already at work on a sequel to it…while at the same time doing preliminary art for a 130 pg Brother Bones graphic novel, which has the Air Chief wound for sound. As it turns out, our copies of the very first Brother Bones title (above right..and still available at Amazon Loyal Airmen) was our biggest seller at this show.

On Sunday afternoon comic creator Guy Davis, stopped by the table to show off his latest treasure presented to him by a fan. Guy writes a science fiction comic series which is fantastic, very much in the Star Trek vein, of which he is a huge fan. So in his comic, there are lots of space ships including the one flown by his characters and early on Guy actually drew up a schematic of the ship and published it in one of his issues. Lo and behold, a fan came to his table yesterday and handed him that very schematic etches on piece of aluminum. Guy was overjoyed, as any creator would be, and brought it over to show Valerie and the Air Chief. This photo doesn’t do the piece justice. Naturally Guy’s plan are have it carefully framed and put up in his office. You got to love fans.  And speaking of such, for the first time ever, we had a cos-player show up as the one and only Popeye. Having written that character way at the start of our career, we had to take a pix with this enthusiastic young fellow. You’ll note he was carrying a can of spinach in his hands…Popeye is already ready for action.

As you can see the show was another hit and we want to thank Todd Jones & Nick Armstrong for the hard work they put in all year to make this such a wonderful event for our town.

THE LAST YEAR

Our two youngest grand kids are both entering the last year of a specific chapter in their lives. Above left is grandson Logan, who in now in his senior year of high school. Logan’s ambition is to some day be a music teacher. While his older sister Taryn (above right) is seen in this pix set up her room ready to begin her senior year of studies at the University of New Hampshire. Though not set in stone, Taryn has talked about psychology as a future career path. Valerie and the Air Chief think of them daily and wish them all the best as they launch into this new school year.

BOSTON BOMBERS Vol 2 # 1

Another good seller at the show was the first issue of The Boston Bombers Vol 2 – While Valerie and the Air Chief was there, artist Rob Davis back in Missouri was busy at work on the next page for issue # 2. We were blown away when we saw it. Rob’s truly knocking this one out of the park. And the Air Chief had better hustling to write issue # 3. Ha.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – COMING NEXT!

Happy to announce the third volume of MARS McCOY – Space Ranger Vol 3 is nearing completion at Airship 27 Production. Vol 3 will feature stories by John Bear Ross, Wayne Carey, Robert J. Mendenhall and Russ Anderson. Meanwhile you can still grab volumes one and two (seen above) at Amazon.

JIN & TONIK

Finally artist Cesar Feliciano did up this great new Jin & Tonik piece that he says will be an alternate cover for book # 1 one when it is completed. We can’t wait. Colorist Matt Webb is still hard a work finishing the colors to that volume. It’s going to look amazing!

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen. As ever, thanks so much for stopping by. Be well, stay safe and God Bless.

Ron – Over & Out!