Greetings Loyal Airmen, well here were are for another installment of our Flight Log with both good and bad things to report.  Last week, feeling poorly, the Air Chief, at Valerie's nudging, went in to see his doctor. We were expecting to be told we had a bad case of the flu. Not so. As it turned out we discovered we actually had a very bad kidney infection and had we not stopped in for that visit, we most likely would have ended up in a hospital a few days later.  So happily that was averted and we were put on a very high dosage antibiotics treatment that will last for thirty days. In the meanwhile we are going back in to see the doctor for a follow up and to make sure the drugs are working to clear things up.  Quite honestly, we are feeling a whole lot better and are again extremely grateful to Val for getting us in to see the doctor when we did.  Spending the holidays in a hospital bed would have been no fun at all. Ha.

                              
                                        WRITER JOE BONADONNA
Just a little over a week ago, Airship 27 Productions released its 15ht book of the year, a space opera entitled THREE AGAINST THE STARS by Chicago based author, Joe Bonadonna.  Well Joe was so thrilled with how his terrific book came out ( a tip of the hat to Art Director Rob Davis ) he had this photo snapped of himself with his books when they arrived.  The dazzling cover is by the truly gifted Laura Givens and the interior art is by Portuguese artist Pedro Cruz.  We hope you'll pick up a copy either at Amazon (& on Kindle) or at our (www.Indyplanet.com) site as well.  Its truly a rousing sci-fi adventure.

                                 
                                                       THE AIR CHIEF IS READY FOR BEAR!!
Speaking of artist Pedro Cruz, the above image of the Air Chief by Pedro is from a new Zone 4 Comic Book that is now in production. Pedro illustrated one of the strips in the book and that panel is part of his gorgeous work. Note the final comic, when it is available early next year will be in full color.  Anyway, during the past weekend, dealing with my illness, the Air Chief was doing his best to stay optimistic and smiling.  Then out of the blue comes this truly great e-mail from Pedro asking if we would be interested in creating a brand new comic book graphic novel with him?  Trust me, it didn't take us long to answer in the affirmative.  Pedro is such a great artist, we hurriedly sent him half a dozen ideas that have been gathering dust in our files and he immediately latched on to one and said, “Let's do this one.”  Note, the idea Pedro chose is based on an historical event and our graphic novel will tell a “true story” many of you are going to be amazed by.  It's one the Air Chief has been waiting to tell like this for many, many years.  And now we've got the chance. Stay tuned for further development as it all starts to come together; from idea to conception.

                     CHARACTER SKETCHES BY ARTIST JOE ARNOLD
And finally, this coming Sunday the Air Chief will be giving his eight and final class in his HOW TO WRITE COMICS which has been going on at the local comic shop here in Fort, Collins, Gryphon Games & Comics. This will be our last meeting with our students Kristine & Ben and to help brighten the occasion, once again local artist Joe Arnold did up two more very cool drawings based on characters from their respective stories done in the class. The past few months working with these two imaginative young people has been a pure joy for the Air Chief.  Both Kristine & Ben are great writers and you can fully expect to see their comic stories coming your way soon. That's a prediction we make with confidence.

And there you have for another week, Loyal Airmen. Thanks as ever for stopping by, be careful out there this holiday season, lots of people rushing to and fro to get their last minute gift-buying done. Take a second to be a little more cautious so all of you can be around come Christmas morning to join in the fun.
Ron – Over & Out!