Greetings Loyal Airmen, last weekend Valerie and the Air Chief joined Rob & Theresa Davis and traveled to Lombard, Illinois to attend the annual Windy City Pulp & Paper Con. To say we had a great time would be an understatement. The show as a blast. Check out all these pix.

Above Air Chief, Val, Theresa and Rob Davis. Across the aisle from us, Jonathan Sweet and his son David who happens to be a big Minnesota Twins fan.

So many of our great New Pulp amigos were there. Above left writer Andy Fix stops by writer Van Plexico’s table while down the aisle representing Pro Se Press were Aubrey and head honcho Tommy Hancock.

Robyn and Mark van Zanden above left and to right, writer pal George Tackes and Air Chief.

Above left writer Matthew Bienek and then Val and Air Chief enjoy a coffee break.

Above left, Air Chief, artist Steve Bryant of Athena Voltaire fame and Rob. At right, voice actor Mark Kalita in baseball cap meets New Pulp writer historian Will Murray.

Above left, the New Pulp gang heads for Portellos for Friday night get together, then it was back to the con for the Pulp Factory Awards handed out by Rob and the Air Chief, above right.

Happily Airship 27 Production’s Vol 9 of our hit series, “Mystery Men (& Women) won for Best Anthology, while Art Director Rob Davis won for best interior illustrations and among our four writers in the book, Jaime Ramos, Jonathan Sweet, Mark Allen Vann & Jarrett Mazza, Jaime’s story, “Exile of Avalon” won for Best Short Story. That’s his character, Steelgrave above at right. Other winners included Jeffrey Hayes for Best Cover and Charles Millhouse for Best Novel.

The following day was New Pulp Sunday and we saw two really great panels this year. Above left, Fred Adams Jr. moderated a panel on AI and its impact on publishing, which featured writers Dale Cozort, David C. Smith, Fred and George Tackes. The next panel was an interactive build a pulp story, wherein writer/moderator Andy Fic (at easel) took ideas from the audience when the writers, Van Plexico, Gordon Dymowski, Mark Van Zander &  Tommy Hancock will write stories. These will be published and made available to the public. Hopefully a panel that will become a tradition at Windy City.

And with Sunday afternoon the show wrapped up. We packed all our boxes and stuff and head out to downtown Chicago for real highlight, dinner with our daughter Heather, who lives there. She took us all to a wonderful Italian restaurant and we had a really great time. All in all another memorable Windy City Con. Our thanks to promoters Doug Ellis and John Gunnison. See you again next year.

JIN & TONIK

While in Chicago, artist co-creator Cesar Feliciano was busy putting the finishing touches on “Jin & Tonik #1″ Above left are the official covers. Back cover to left, front cover in the center and to the interior credits page is to right. The book is now being lettered by artist Mike Belcher. Once done, Cesar will move on to getting a funding campaign going. You can only imagine how excited we are about getting this book out to you Loyal Airmen. Oh, yeah.

TERMINATOR RETURNS

We were recently made aware that Dynamite Comics has gotten the rights to produce special editions of old Terminator graphic novel series. One of these “The Burning Earth” series we wrote and Alex Ross illustrated for the defunct Now Comics. Others were done for Dark Horse comics. The project is being funded by a Kickstarter Campaign. Seems like folks just can’t get enough of those stories. Be nice if the powers that be send me a few. Doubtful, but one never knows.

WICKED WEST COMIX EXPO YEAR THREE

Tomorrow, Sat April 13th, we’ll be guest at the nearby Loveland, CO for the third annual Wicked West Comic Expo put on by our pal Todd Jones. Also on hand will be Zane & Olivia DeGaine, both of whom the Air Chief is working on. Zane hopes to have a completed mock up of the entire issue # 1 of our new western series “Hamlet’s End.” Hope to see lots of our Colorado and Wyoming fans there.

Phew, and that’s it for this week, Loyal Airmen. As ever thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you right back here next Friday morning.

Ron – Over & Out!