Greetings Loyal Airmen, as you read these words, the Air Chief is in Columbus attending this year’s Pulp Fest convention.  We’ll have a full report, and hopefully a few pictures for you when we get back next week. But for now let’s dig into this week’s Flight Log and somethings that we’ve been thinking about lately.

For years British television had the knack of developing limited run TV series and presenting them like visual chapters in a single book. Whereas in America the major networks continued to give us the same week in and week out series that always seem to drag on and on without any major changes. Whenever they took the gamble to try the novel approach, it invariably had to be a huge production affair ala a mini-series along the lines of “Roots,” “The Thorn Birds” or “Lonesome Dove.” And even here, Hollywood just couldn’t get away from wanting to give us sequels of the mini-series. Ergo, the Air Chief, like many of his writing pals always wondered why American television couldn’t just tell one multi-chapter story…and then move on to something else ala an authentic anthology. Then last year, HBO gave us “True Detective,” created by mystery writer Nic Pizzolatto and starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harleson, who also served as Executive Producers. It was a gripping tale of child abductions and mutilations occurring in Louisianna being covered by corrupt government official…until two homicide detectives refused to accept the cover and spent years unraveling the mystery and bringing the guilty to justice. It was a brutal, tough, adult drama and we loved it. At the end of the series, the mystery resolved, we had a real sense of it having come to a genuine conclusion. Still we wondered if there would be a follow. Imagine both our surprise and delight when months later we heard HBO had given Pizzolatto the thumbs to do another, but this time with a totally new cast and telling a brand new story that would take place in Los Angeles.

This past Sunday night that second series starring Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch and Vince Vaughn wrapped up in a very gritty, powerful film noir style. Honestly, we enjoyed just as much as the first season’s story. Everyone in the cast was superb but the major pleasure was seeing Vince Vaughn play the sophisticated gangster who had foolishly thought he could leave his street-ways behind until circumstance forced him to have to become a thug once again. Since its finale, we’ve been seeing a few Facebook posts with folks grumbling this season was as good as the first etc. etc. Which is fine as all of us who love good crime and mystery novels all have our favorites and often attempt to quantify them…but keep in mind that is all subjective to your own personal taste. Again, what all of us should be applauding here is HBO willing to do a real anthology series and Pizzolatto giving us two totally different crime stories, each as far apart in style and atmosphere as the Earth is from Jupiter. Now that’s TV worth following. But upon consideration of some of these Facebook comments, the Air Chief would personally want to challenge HBO and Mr. Pizzolatto by suggesting the following…if you are going to do a third season, as we certainly hope that does happen, then we think it would be great if he would actually recruit ANOTHER MYSTERY WRITER to do the third season, but stay on as the producer. After all, it is an anthology series.

Now all of you Loyal Airmen know that in the past few weeks the Air Chief has been working what is going to most likely be the biggest single anthology book Airship 27 Productions will ever put out – LEGENDS OF NEW PULP FICTION. This is the benefit book for our pal, Tommy Hancock. As of this writing, 40 of the 57 promised short stories have been turned in…and they are great. But keep in mind, each story will also feature an illustration and we thought you’d get a kick out of seeing two of them now in progress. Both pieces above are actually incomplete and only in their pencils stages. The one on the left is by Shannon Hall and the one on the right by Silvestre Szilagyi. We love them both. This is the caliber of art that will be featured throughout this amazing book. Stay tuned.

And that’s it for this week, Loyal Airmen. Thanks ever for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!