Greetings Loyal Airmen and welcome to another Flight Log.  Last week we talked about how thrilled we were to have found a super talented penciler in young Barry McClain who would be illustrating “Man of Ash,” the third Simon Pryce mystery comic book, titled PRICE FOR THE ASKING.

The first thing Barry did, upon reading our script, co-written with Bill Gladman, was to do up some sketches of the principle characters to include the Detroit private eye hero, Simon Pryce (above).  As is easy to tell, Barry has a very loose, free-flowing drawing style which looks great, but does end up offering all kinds of challengers to an inker.  So we put out an ad at our favorite comic-creators site, Digital Webbing, explaining we were hunting for really talented inkers who could tighten up loose pencils.

Within twenty-four hours our ad generate a half dozen interested inkers all wanting a shot at be a part of this project.  So we sent all of them several of these character sketches Barry had done up and are now awaiting the results.  Among the very first to get back to us was one Paul Frey, whose inks over Barry's pencils were truly amazing (see above).  He really is confident in his brush strokes and though we've still a few other inkers to look at, we hope to have a final decision within a few days.  And quite frankly, Paul is very much at the head of the list right now.  We think you'll agree.

Over the past few weeks, Valerie and the Air Chief have seen quite a few outstanding movies.  From GONE GIRL to FURY, these are the kinds of straight up adult dramas, be they mysteries or action themes, that Hollywood holds for their Fall releases.  Well, this past week we finally went to see Christopher Nolan's outstanding, mind-blowing space adventure, INTERSTELLAR, starring Matthew McConaughey….and be loved it.  The plot basically revolves around the fact that in the near future the Earth is dying and will no longer be habitable for humans to live on.  Some day, as our sun continues to burn, that will be a reality.  Whereas in this movie, unknown forces have opened up a black hole near the planet Saturn as if inviting mankind to pass through into another part of the universe where there could be earth-like planets for us to escape to and survive.  McConaughey plays Cooper, the pilot given the job of taking the mission through this black hole.  Whereas he has to leave his family behind well aware of the Einstein theory of relativity that time will not move at the same speed for him and his crew as it will for the people on earth.  Meaning, even is they should succeed in finding a safe haven for earth, but the time they returned, everyone they knew would have aged considerable, including Cooper's daughter, whose faith in him is at the core of this amazing film.

Okay, so there are scientist who've made it a point to pan the movie for its scientific inaccuracies as if that was the point of the entire movie.  Sadly they fail to grasp the fact that movies are not documentaries and Christopher Nolan is more interested in the larger issue; how long do we keep trying to save the earth before we begin to get back to a true, dedicated space program that will allow us to leave this world and move out into the stars.  He, and ye old Air Chief, believe, that man is wired with a questing gene and though the earth is our birthplace in the universe, it was never meant to be our permanent home.  The Air Chief constantly butts head with obsessed environmentalist who would have us squander billions of dollars on saving one single planet while at the same time shutting the gates to man's future amongst the stars…where we will one day inhabit millions of planets.  IF….we are smart enough to reach for those stars.  Only time will tell.  Till then, go see INTERSTELLAR, it's a winner.

Ron – Over & Out!