Greeting Loyal Airmen, here we are with the Spring officially here.  In a few more weeks baseball season will open up and we cannot wait to cheer on our World Champions of 2013, the Boston Red Sox.
In the meantime, there's always lots to do around the old Hangar 27.

Several years ago, the Air Chief discovered on-line a truly talented artist named Rob Moran who hails from Scotland.  Rob has won numerous awards for his work which includes everything from webstirps to graphic novels and book illustrations.  Rob began posting some of his work on-line and the Air Chief soon became a huge fan.  What we noticed immediately is that Rob loved to draw images from the classic black and white gangster movies of the 1930s and 40s.  Here were the great cinematic tough guys like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson to name a few.  He also drew, extremely well, the famous femme fatales of those Noir classics.

We were so impressed that when it came time for us to start work on writer Terrence McCauley's wonderful gangster novel, PROHIBITION, we went begging Rob to join the team and do the art for it.
Much to our delight he agreed and ended up winning the Pulp Factory Award that year for Best Interior Illustrations.  Last year we once again managed to cajole him in working on Roman Leary's pulp thriller, BROTHER BONES – SIX DAYS OF DRAGON.  It should come as no surprise to you that Rob has also been nominated for that particular project.  The results of this year's voting to be revealed in April at the Windy City Pulp & Paper Con.

Anyway, all the while we were with with Rob, he began telling the Air Chief, and Airship 27 Productions' own Rob, Art Director Rob Davis, that he had lots and lots of these illustrations and had often hoped to one day collect them all in an art book showcasing his work.  Well, you don' t have to hit the Air Chief over the noggin when we hear a great idea.  Rob (Davis) and the Air Chief immediately loved the idea and volunteered to produce the book for him, if he would be willing to allow us that singular honor.  Happily Rob (Moran) said yes and earlier this week, Airship 27 Productions released its first ever pulp orientated art book – NOIR – The Art of Rob Moran.  See that gorgeous cover above.  The book is available at Amazon, its 8 X 11 and half inches with 70 pages of some of the most beautiful black and white illustration art you will ever see.  Sales have been brisk since we announced its release and if you are a true lover of art, we hope you'll give this your support.

The school kids here in Fort Collins, have been enjoying their week of Spring break out of school and happily the warm weather has been most welcome to all of them.  One of the major fun places in our city is the amazing Children's Museum of Discovery.  See photo above.  During this break week, the museum every year devotes every day of the week to a specific theme dealing with both creativity and science.  Friday is reserved for COMIC BOOK CREATING and the Air Chief and several of his comic book colleagues will be on hand at the museum all day to explain to these kids how comics are made, show them original art and talk about the creative process and how it relates to comic storytelling.  We did this last year and had a blast.  We're thrilled the museum director also agreed and invited us back again.

And finally, about a month ago the Air Chief gave an on-line interview about his writing career. You can find it here on line (http://maybeillbeback.podbean.com/2014/03/20/ron-fortier/) and we are told on I-Tunes as well. Enjoy and thanks to Corey Hodgon, the show's host for having us.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  We wish all of you a truly wonderful Spring, good weather and fun.  Get outside and enjoy the wonders of nature, they are all around us.

Ron – Over & Out!