Greetings Loyal Airmen, we’re going to kick off this week’s Flight Log with the news of our latest Airship 27 Productions title wherein we bring back a classic pulp hero.

This was the top secret project we started hinting back in the early Fall of 2018. For the uninitiated, Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond is a British fictional character, created by H. C. McNeile and published under his pen name “Sapper”. The first of his ten Drummond novels was published in 1920. He would later write four short stories, four stage plays and a screenplay before his death in 1937. The stories were then continued by his friend Gerard Fairlie between 1938 and 1954. A Bulldog Drummond radio series ran on the Mutual Broadcasting System from April 1941 to January 1949. There were 24 Bulldog Drummond movies made between 1922 and 1969 with fifteen actors playing the part of Drummond.  John Howard holds the record at seven made between 1937 and 1939.  Other actors included Ronald Coleman, Ray Miland, Walter Pidgeon and Richard Johnson.

Ours is a modernization of the old series, as devised by the Air Chief and writer I.A. Watson. Whereas the original novels were terribly racist, and a product of their times, it was thought the smartest way to leave that ignorant bigotry behind was to simply update the characters. In the first book of what will be an on-going Airship 27 series, we meet retired British Captain Hugh Drummond and the rest of the cast, made up primarily of his team from the British Special Forces known as the SAS.  After retiring from the Army, Drummond is bored with civilian life and post an ad in the London Times stating he is “looking” for adventure…and in the end gets more than he bargained for.  “On Poisoned Ground” is a cover to cover action roller coaster ride we are thrilled to offer our Loyal Airmen. In other words, Bulldog Drummond is back!

Our second Airship 27 Productions release of the week is “FRED ADAMS JR – Pulp Writer ” and it showcases the work of New Pulp’s most talented and prolific writer, Fred Adams Jr.  A retired college teacher, Adams burst on the New Pulp scene several years ago with his novel “Hitwolf,” from Airship 27 Productions. It tells the story of a Green Beret captured by Mob in the 1970s and turned into a werewolf assassin.  Later Fred sent us his very first novel, a mystery entitled, ‘Dead Man’s Melody,’ and we happily put that out.” What we didn’t realize at the time was both books were intended to be the first entries in on-going series.

By the time Adams had submitted “Six-Gun Terrors,” a story about two Texas cowboys who encounter supernatural monsters, the writer’s master goal had become obvious.  He wanted to produce as many on-going series as he was capable of writing.  Following on the heels of those first three series debuts, Adams then offered up C.O. Jones, a World War II veteran who, during the war years, belonged to an elite squad that dealt primarily with magical threats to the Allies.  After several C.O. Jones novels, came  “The Eye of Quang Chi,” a mystery set in San Francisco during the turn of the century and starring the co-joined Chinese-American Smith Brothers.

Adams latest pulp series features Ike Mars, a 1950s private eye who was struck twice by lightning. The result of these near-death events left his face malleable enough that he can mold his features to look like other people for a short time.  It soon became clear to the Air Chief and Airship 27 Art Director, Rob Davis, that Adams prodigious volume of great pulp stories should be showcased in a way as to draw attention to all these various series. The answer to that challenge was to produce a “sampler” collection and they put the idea to Adams. He was only too happy to participate and thus, the new “Fred Adams Jr. – Pulp Writer” features six brand new pulp thrillers culled from his current six on-going Airship 27 series.

We had a blast putting this book together. Rob did all the interior illustrations and the cover. It is our hope the book will show fans of his work some of the other series they may missed, as well as make him lots of new readers.  The astounding epilogue here is that Adams is currently creating a seventh series. Fred Adams Jr. is very much pulp writing machine! As ever the book is now available at Amazon in paperback and on Kindle.

Finally, we thought since this week’s Flight Log was showcasing our two latest titles, we’d give all you Loyal Airmen a peek at the interior illustrations available in each book.  Above to the left is an illo from the Bulldog Drummond book by artist Howard Simpson. To the right is an illo by our own Rob Davis from Fred Adams Jr – Pulp Writer. Interior illustrations are one something we take great pride in with Airship 27 Productions.  Enjoy.

Ron – Over & Out!