Greetings Loyal Airmen.  As October rolls around and the temps get a wee bit cooler, we've some exciting news for all you lovers of fast paced private eye tales.  Back in the 1957, the husband and wife team of Gloria and Forest “Skip” Fickling created a sexy blond private eye named Honey West.  She would be featured in ten paperback potboilers, all of them steamy thrillers wherein Miss West's secondary goal, after dodging bullets, seemed to be staying in her clothes.  Lighthearted romps, the books quickly amassed a loyal following of readers who appreciated the couples breezy style of writing.

                     
By 1960 the series came to attention of television producer, Aaron Spelling and he saw to it that Honey would appear in an episode of his cop melodrama, Burker's Law.  The lovely Ann Francis was cast as Honey and her appearance was so popular that Spelling was able to convince ABC to give the character her own show.  Thus between 1965 -1966, Honey West aired in 30 half hour episodes.  Of course as media people will always do, they changed the character slightly by adding to her set-up. Now she was aided by a male partner named Sam Bolt, played by the dashing John Erickson; lived with her Aunt Peg, and now own a pet ocelot named Bruce and drove a stylish Cobra convertible sportscar. 

                    
As a tough, martial arts expert and femme fatale, Honey West was a mold breaking lady far ahead of her time.  Still, despite strong ratings, the network canceled the show after only one season.  Happily VCI Entertainment has released the entire 30 episodes on a 4 disc set pictured above. We recommend highly, as the stories were a lot of fun.  And there is a Honey West revival in progress, soon to be spear-headed by Moonstone Books in a series of prose anthologies and comic books. While the Ficklings are producing a Honey West feature film set to be released in 2010.  Now that's great news.

              
                          Honey by artist Rob Davis

To that end, artist Rob Davis and the Air Chief are wasting no time in putting our services up in regards to this fantastic new project.  Both of us are long time Honey West fans, and as Rob's pin-up above attest, we totally understand the character and very much want to develop her into the graphic world.  So here is an unabashed shout-out to Moonstone Books!!!  We want to do Honey West for you!!!  If you Loyal Airmen agree that we are the team for such a project, feel free to add your voices and let the good people at Moonstone know we're here ready to deliver some rock & sock'em comic action.  We truly will appreciate all your support in this campaign.  And regardless of the outcome, we will certainly be supporting all of Moonstone's Honey West projects and hope you will as well.

Finally, we can't sign off without tipping our baseball caps to the Boston Red Sox for making the play-offs for the sixth time in seven years.  Sadly, the team hasn't been playing it's best baseball, but one thing about the play-offs, they are an entirely brand new season and anything can happen.  So pull it together, Red Sox, and let's win us another World Series.  Go Sox!!!

Ron – Over & Out!