Greetings Loyal Airmen, well the month of December is certainly racing along and before we know it, Santa will soon be packing up his sled and directing his magical reindeer all over the world to gladden the hearts of boys and girls…of all ages.  To say the Air Chief isn't getting excited too, would be a tall whopper for sure.  We so love this time of year.  Of course, we had let you know that we would be shutting down the pulp arm of the Ariship 27 Productions – Redbud Studio operations.  After releasing a record breaking 27 titles from the old Airship 27 this past year, we thought it was time we grounded her for a mechanical overhaul.  In the meanwhile the Air Chief and Rob Davis have been devoting lots more time to their many comic projects still rolling along under our production lights.  We thought this week we'd give you a little peek at three of the Air Chief is working on.

                                        
Some three years ago, Rob and the Air Chief thought it would be great to do a one-shot comic starring that classic pulp spy, SECRET AGENT X.   Within a few weeks we did up a script and then scoured the internet for an artist.  At that time, Rob was merely going to act as director.  We eventually found a talented young man and initially he was enthusiastic about the project and started turning in a few pages. But as often happens in comics, ultimately the guy just couldn't stick with the project and after almost a year of keeping us waiting, bit the bullet and bowed out of the project.  Again, these things happen all the time and we were disappointed but not overly so.  We put the project aside with the thought that some day we'd get back to it.  So lo and behold, way back at the start of 2014, Rob came to the Air Chief saying he'd given it some thought, and depending on how his scheduled looked by the end of the year, he wanted to take a stab at drawing the SECRET AGENT X comic.  We are thrilled to report, several weeks ago, true to his word, Rob dusted off the script and went to work on bringing it to visual life.  We couldn't be more excited.  The comic is just over 30 pages long and Rob recently turned in page # 11, so as you can see this IS going to happen at long last.  Above is a peek at page one which kicks off this super paced pulp thriller.  Sit tight, pulp fans, it is coming.

                                    
Then way back at the start of Nov. we mentioned having attended the super fun Rocky Mountain Con promoted by our pal, Tim Moret, and how we'd met several really talented artists.  One, in fact, had agreed to take on the third Simon Pryce Private Eye written by yours truly and Bill Gladman.  Another project that had been sitting in our files collecting dust for a long-long time.  That artist was Barry McClain and in the past few weeks we've showed some sample of his character pin-up pieces from the story.  Well, we teamed Barry with super incker Paul Frey and together they have begun knocking out some truly stunning black and white pages.  Above is a peek at page one of this 23 page project.  Eventually our amigo Rob Davis will be handling the lettering.  We sure do keep Rob busy, don't we. Anywhere this is another typical Simon Pryce murder mystery and we hope you'll think the wait was well worth it when we get it out.

And lastly, but certainly not the least, we'd like you to meet Fenneck, a wandering adventure, paladin.  Fennec is a Western African Fox and this particular colorful character was created by another artist we had the fun of meeting at Rocky Mountain Con, Mr. Jason Meents.  The Air Chief was immediately taken by his loveable, cartoony style and we discussed various things from comics to possible children's books. This past week, Jason posted the above image on Facebook and asked if anyone would be at all interested in helping him the develop the creature into a possible hero for an on-going, full color comics for kids.
You can imagine how quick the Air Chief jumped on this offer.  At present Jason and the Air Chief are kicking around various ideas and approaches, nothing has been formulated yet, but this creative world building is always a blast and with fingers crossed, when done, we'll have come up with something turly special that you fans will want to pick up.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

So there you have Loyal Airmen, three of many projects, both comics and prose, keeping the Air Chief busy these days.  As ever, thanks for stopping by.  Be nice to each other while out there on the streets doing that last minute gift buying…and in the melee, try to give some thought to the real reason of this season.  It should warm your hearts.  Till next week, take care,

Ron – Over & Out.