Greetings Loyal Airmen, well we get the ball rolling this week with a look at the cover to GUNS OF THE BLACK BAT issue # 3 coming out in Aug from Moonstone. Below is the actual solicitation comic readers will find in the May issue of the Diamond Catalog.  As ever thanks for your support.

Guns of the Black Bat #3
Writer: Ron Fortier
Art: Silvestre Szilagyi
Cover: Michael Stribling
32pgs, grayscale, $3.50
UPC: 685239899108
Domino Lady and the Phantom Detective travel to the Congo to find a life-saving plant as the Black Bat and the rest of his team continue to battle prehistoric humans and animals on the streets of Manhattan.

With only two weeks left before the Windy City Pulp & Paper con, the Air Chief and Chief Engineer Rob have been doing maintenance on the old Airship 27.  Doug Ellis, one of the show’s organizers, asked Rob to do up a flyer showcasing the panels to be held on Sunday, the last day of the show. This has since become known as New Pulp Sunday as a bunch of super talented writers and artists come together to discuss the various facets of the New Pulp Movement.  Above is the finished flyer. All attendees will receive a copy upon entering the main hall. It list 20 creators and the five hour long panels that will be held.  Really looking forward to this and counting the days.

No one can ever excuse independent comics of being speedy.  Over a year ago, the Air Chief teamed up with artist John Williams and letterer Warren Montgomery to write an adult sci-fi mystery thrilled called PARADISE FALLS.  It took us a year and we finally released # 1.  The top left half of the image above being out cover, sans the logo etc. Then over the next ten months, working at whatever free time was avaialble to us, we actually managed to finish the second issue and just got it out about a month ago.  In discussing the cover, the Air Chief thought it would be cool to have the second being a continuation of the first, only spotlighting another character from the series and John was only too happy to do it.  And Warren, a multi talented guy, did the coloring again.  Both issues are available on-line at (www.IndyPlanet.com). As no work has even begun on issue # 3, your guess is as good as ours as to when that one will come out.  As ever, we’ll keep you posted.

We should label this next section, Welcome Back to the Jungle. This weekend Disney Studios releases its third version of Rudyard Kipling’s classic JUNGLE BOOK, the story of a young boy, Mowgli, raised in the jungles of India. Now as most of you will recall, Disney did a wonderful animated version in the 60s which was a huge hit. Later, in the 80s, they tried their hands at a live action version starring actor Jason Lee as an older Mowgli.  It was clear Disney was attempting to mine the success of the early black and white 30s version starring Sabu. Again, this new live version was really well done and we enjoyed it greatly.  Now, after a few more decades have passed, Disney is returning to the cartoon version of the 60s and with the magic of CGI morphing it, and its little boy hero, into a full blown live action spectacular.  The trailers alone are jaw-dropping and you can bet the Air Chief and Valerie will be buying their tickets shortly.  Later Warner Brothers is going to be offering us a new Tarzan flick, THE LEGEND OF TARZAN. Whereas they are going to keep the character in the era set forth by his writer-creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, they’ve also opted to include elements of authentic Congo history to enlivened the drama.  Again, this looks to be a great movie that will do Burroughs beloved character long overdue justice.  We can’t wait to see it.

Still, when talking jungle movies, we have to mention our favorite film of all time, the original, 1933 black and white KING KONG.  It is a movie experience that has remained with the Air Chief all his life, the story of a powerful beast ripped from his jungle home on Skull Island and brought to civilization to be made fun of and eventually killed still moves us every single time we’ve watched.  And yes, we also appreciated Peter Jackson’s loving version, as it was clear, he too loved the original and wanted to pay homage to it and he succeeded admirably.  Both are worth watching time and time again.  But now comes the news of yet another Kong movie and that has us very, very excited

Coming in 2017 will be KONG OF SKULL ISLAND.  But here’s the good news, it is NOT another retelling of the same story we’ve all come to know.  Rather it is a true re-imagining of adventure set in the mid 1960s when a platoon of soldiers are ordered from their base camp in Vietnam to sail to a recently discovered island in the South Pacific.  There, on this lost, uncharted island they encounter prehistoric monsters ala dinosaurs and of course a whopping big old gorilla.  Tom Hiddleston heads the cast and early stills from the production, now underway, look great. So as you can see, Loyal Airmen, Hollywood’s love of jungle tales is far from over.  Much to the Air Chief’s delight.  Oh, yeah.

Ron – Over & Out!