Greetings Loyal Airmen, last week saw the annual Free Comic Book Day celebration which happens the first Sat of every May across the country. And comic shops everywhere joined in on the fun, including our own Gryphon Games & Comics here in Fort Collins. Hundreds of fans lined up outside the doors for the 9:15 opening.  By the end of the day they would clock in thousands of visitors.

The store staff was hopping all day, and here’s a pix of one of them handing our former writing student Maxwell Williams a cup of coffee to keep him going.  Max, like everyone else had a blast.

Here’s a shot from inside the main room of the comic shop. Naturally, beside picking up their “free” comics, most fans continued on into the shop to see what other goodies await them.

Lots of local creators, such as artist Ben Mikkelsen above were on had to meet comic fans.  Others include Todd Jones, Abe Akins, Jeff Herndon, Laurisa Hughes and ye old Air Chief himself.

Here we are talking with artist Jeff Herndon just prior to the doors opening. On the wall to the right of our banner are some of Jeff’s amazing paintings. He’s truly a gifted artist.

Here we are with young Addison, a fan who picked up our collected Tales of the Macabre.  Here dad snapped this picture. All in all, it was a long day, but we wouldn’t have missed a minute of it. We hope all you Loyal Airmen had as much at your own local comic shops as well.

Falling under the heading, The Captain’s Newest Toys.  All Loyal Airmen by know how much we love the Republic serials and among our favorites were the three Rocketman titles that eventually would go on to inspire the late Dave Stevens to create his masterful homage, The Rocketeer. In its time, Republic made three featuring this high flying hero. The first was “King of the Rocket Men” with Tristram Coffin playing a scientist who develops the rocket pack and then uses it to thwart villains. The second 12 chapter adventure titled “Radar Men From The Moon” featured George Wallace as an actual hero now publicly known as Commando Cody.  This time the threat was from outer space and for the first time we got to see Commando Cody’s rocket ship. Tons of fun. And finally, wanting to capitalize on the success of their new hero, we were given a final serial, “Zombies Of The Startosphere.” This time our hero was simply named Larry Martin and portrayed by Judd Holdren.  The interesting trivia bit with this serial is one of the alien invaders from Mars was played by a very young Leonard Nimoy; long before he would garner success as the Vulcan Mr. Spock on Star Trek.  After “Zombies” Republic actually produced a fourth serial, once again with Holdren and his mated but by now television had come into its own and so the individual chapters were altered to complete segments and it was sold as a TV series entitled, “Sky Marshal of the Universe.” Over the years the Air Chief has managed to collect all four on VHS, and “King” on DVD.  Whereas Eric Steadman and his amazing Serial Squadron operations has released a collector’s set featuring all three of the original serials. The second we saw it advertised, we knew we had have it. The packaged arrived in today’s mail and we only thought it appropriate we snap a pix of it along side one of our several Rocketeer action figures. Lots of good nostalgic viewing ahead, Loyal Airmen.

And lastly for this week, we are happy to announe the release of our newest Airship 27 Productions pulp book, THE PURPLE SCAR – The Black Fog by Gene Moyers.  This is the first full length featuring this horror-infused avenger. Moyers has been one of our most talented creators and with this, his first novel, he attains new heights of thrilling story telling. As ever available from Amazon on paperback and Kindle. And of course, thanks for your continued support.

And that’s a wrap for this week.  See you back here next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!