Greeting Loyal Airmen, here we are again with another Flight Log looking at the culture world for all its beauty and its ugliness.  This week the Air Chief needs to vent a wee bit at the news that the Sci-Fi Channel has canceled easily its finest series ever, ALPHAS!

For two season this show brought us taut, suspenseful tales in an adult perspective on the age-old comic book theory of super-beings.  This was X-Men done realistically, better than of the big-budget films thus far produced.  One of the reasons cited for cancellation was that the show went from 2 million viewers its first season down to only 1 million its second year.  The Air Chief still boggles at this logic. Considering Sci-Fi's less than stellar record, don't these people know 1 million viewers was a freakin' SUCCESS for them?  And the frustration continues in that they not only cancelled the show, but did so in a way that leave's the season two cliff-hanger, which had half the cast left for dead, now forever unresolved.  Had they been kind to their 1 million fans, they would have at least considered a special made-for-TV one shot movie to wrap things up.  No, instead they opted to annoy 1 million fans.  Way to go, Sci-Fi Channel.  Duh.

On a much happier note, writer Roman Leary, a truly talented soul, surprised the Air Chief over the holidays by sending him a book he had been wanting to read and a DVD documentary on the pulp avenger THE SHADOW we didn't even know existed.  See the cover above.  This is a ten-part, two hour documentary explaining the history of this famous character, his creator and all the people who portrayed him both on the radio and in later films. It is truly a fun, informative piece and we can't recommend it highly enough. Again its available at Amazon and thanks Roman, we truly enjoyed this marvelous surprise gift.

Finally we'll end this week's entry with a truly exciting piece of news.  One of the Air Chief's all time favorite horror films is the classic FRANKENSTEIN.  Seen above as portrayed by the great Boris Karloff.  Well, very recently we found an open call for comic creators to contribute either a story or art to a new comic anthology whose theme is the Frankenstein Monster!!  Intrigued by the concept, we wrote the editor of the project and they happily asked us to submit a story idea.  We did, they approved it and gave us the green light to write and submit it.  The Air Chief is wound for sound about this. It will be an eight page tale and after it is approved by the editor, we'll get into talking about who will illustrate it.  Stay tuned, we'll as ever keep you posted.

And that, Loyal Airmen, wraps up another Jan. Flight Log.  Stay well and out of trouble.  Big Brother is watching you.  Oh, Yeah.

Ron – Over & Out!