Greeting Loyal Airmen.  Been checking the calendar more and more these days.  In less than five days, Valerie comes homes and things around Hangar 27 will be back to normal.  And none too soon, as the Air Chief needs her expert skills in packing up for the big New York Comic Con coming up the very next week.  The more we hear about all the activities planned for that show, the more excited we become.  The last big comic show we attended was the San Diego Comic Con back in the early 80s when our career was starting.

It was at the Con in 1979 that we met artist Jeff Butler, who at the time was one of the artistic directors at the very popular Dungeons and Dragons outfit.  After being introduced to Jeff by a mutual friend, he showed us his portfolio and amongst all the great pieces was hidden a cute pin-up lass decked out like a female Green Hornet.  Now the Hornet had always been a favorite TV hero of mine and as it turned out, of Jeff as well.

                
By this time, to most comic fans he was a very distant memory.  The one season TV series starring Van Williams and the late Bruce Lee was long gone.  And the last time the characters had appeared in comic form had been three issues of a limited from Gold Key based on that short-lived series.  That's one of the three pictured above.
Now we bring this all up because several months after that San Diego convention, we were instrumental in helping Now Comics acquire the rights to the character for the launching of a brand new Green Hornet comic book series with ye old Air Chief as the writer.  Thing is the original artist slated to work with me had to drop out of the project for personal reasons leaving us scrambling to find a replacement.  Luckily we remembered Jeff's little pin-up and his fondness for the Hornet.  A quick call to Jeff and much to our stunned surprise, he happily gave up his lucrative job at D & D to join us in bringing this character back to comic life.

                     
The following year, both Jeff and I were at San Diego again, this time as the creative force behind the new comic book.  The first issue sold over a quarter of a million copies and it quickly became Now Comic's best selling title ever.  For the next few years, Jeff and I whipped up tale after tale of this amazing character who had his roots in radio back during the Great Depression and then went on to star in two Universal cliff-hanger serials.  All of which culminated in the four issue mini-series, STING OF THE GREEN HORNET, which starred that classic
character as pictured above by Jeff.  To this day most GH fans consider it the best GH story ever produced and neither of us will argue that point.  Ha.

We bring all this up because early this week, after months of preparations, Jeff has finally launched his very own website and it features lots and lots of great artwork from his nearly 30 year career as a graphic artists.  If you love gorgeous, jaw-dropping art, you owe it to yourselves to check it out.   Simply go to our Links page and you'll find the new, colorful banner with his name splashed all over it.   Looking through this beautiful work has brought back tons of happy memories for ye Old Air Chief.  Although no longer in comics, Jeff now handles artwork for a gaming company that produces material for the big boys ala X-Box and Nintendo.  Jeff reports he's got a few ideas for a possible webstrip in the future and you can bet your pennies, Loyal Airmen, if there's any way the Air Chief can get involved with this new gig, he will make it happen.  Good luck with the website, my friend.

                  
                                  LOST IS BACK!!!
If you don't think ye Old Air Chief isn't psyched by the return of his all time favorite show, well, guess again.  The two hour season five premier this past Wed. night was just terrific start to finish and we are predicting it is going to be the most daring and explosive season yet.  Couple this great series with J.J.Abrams' new FRINGE, and is it any wonder we've named Abrams our favorite media writer!!  

And finally, as a few of your Loyal Airmen are aware, we do actually have a live forum and it is safely anchored at the most amazing comic book website on the internet, COMIC RELATED.   This past week, CR's head man, Chuck Moore, revealed a beautiful new face-lift to the site and it is just stunning.  So if you've ever wanted to drop me a line, you can still do so via the contact link.  We do so love getting your letters.  But if you'd also like to chat up comics, movies, pulps and whatever, please, check out the link to CR just above this column, click on it and come on over.  Once you've visited CR, we think you'll come back again and again.

Which is what we hope you do here as well, Loyal Airmen.  Hope all of you are keeping warm.  Spring is just around the corner and with comes baseball!!!  Have a great week,  Ron- Over & Out.