Greetings loyal airmen.  Last week I mentioned we were actively looking for new writers at Airship 27Productions and mentioned the possibilities that we might being doing a Sherlock Holmes anthology in the near future.  Well first of all, let me thank all the terrific, and talented, writers who've contacted me this past week.  I was very much impressed with all of you and am delighted to have you on board.  This bodes well for all you loyal airmen, as these new pulpsmiths are very eager to start writing new and thrilling pulp yarns of your favorite classic heroes.  Stay tuned and as always, I'll be keeping you posted.

Of course discussing those old Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movie was enough to make me sit down one night and watch one of them from extensive DVD collection.  By random, I chose THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, one of my favorites as it pits the Consulting Detective against his arch nemesis, the Napoleon of Crime, Prof. James Moriarity, who in this story desires nothing less than to steal the Crown Jewels of England.  Okay, so I'm sitting here, in the batcave that is my den, watching this fun black and white movie when all of a sudden this actor walks onto the a scene, playing the love interest of the female lead, and your Old Air Chief about fell off his plush recliner.  The guy looks exactly like my pulp hero, Captain Hazzard!  I kid you not.  He was the physical embodiment of the Champion of Justice.  Fit, tall, muscular and brutally handsome with piercing eyes and a dashing, thin mustache.  One of my good pals, Canadian writer Charles Saunders, had recently posted over on his website pictures of those actors he thought could portray the characters from his IMARO series of books. And here I was watching a fellow who could have easily been Hazzard in a 1930s cliff-hanger serial.

                      
                              Alan Marshall as Captain Hazzard

As soon as I finished watching the movie, I jumped on to the internet and went hunting for this fellows biography. The DVD cover told me his name was Alan Marshall and I had no trouble finding several sites dedicated to his life and career.  Apparently he was extremely successful in the late 30s and 40s as a leading man type and made lots of very good movies for various studios both here and in England.  The thing is, loyal airmen, in all the photos posted at these sites, every single one of them reaffirmed he WAS Captain Hazzard.  Later that same night I sent the link to his site to my artists, Rob Davis, who does all the interior illustrations for our Hazzard adventures and Mark Maddox, the fellow who paints those amazing covers.  Both of them were stunned by the likeness and agreed with my assessment.  Rob even went the extra step and using Photo-Shop, played with one of Marshall's photos to add the famous scar over Captain Hazzard's left eye.  (See above.)  And of course both artists downloaded lots of these photos as now they will have some wonderful “real” references for future Hazzard illustrations.  Amazing, don't you think?

Getting back to our books, we are thrilled to announce the release (today) of our reprint edition of one of our most successful Airship 27 Prod. titles, SECRET AGENT X – Vol. Two.  The first edition sold out within months of its release and we are delighted to have it available once again.  It contains three of the original tales from the first edition and a brand new, never before published thriller by B.C.Bell.  B.C. is one of those new recruits I've been gushing about lately and his X story here is just fantastic.  You don't want to miss it.  The book also contains twelve dynamite illos by Rob Davis and that stunning cover above by Rob and digital color wizard, Chris Carney.  As always, like all our books, it is avaible through all major book distributors ala Barnes & Noble and Amazon.  And you loyal airmen can get it via our on-line store for a 25% saving off retail.  Just click to onto the dirigible logo to the upper left of this column.

The added excitement about all this is that this release not only makes both Vol One & Two of our Secret Agent X books available once again, but now paves the way for all new anthologies, the first of which, Vol. Three, we hope to have ready within a month or so.  If you have never ever read a Secret Agent X story, I hope you'll give this book a try.  He was the original pulp super spy and the true precursor to all the heroes like James Bond that came later.  This is pulp adventure at its best.

Finally, I want to leave you airmen with this amazing photograph that surfaced on the internet this past week and was forwarded to your Airchief by a good friend.  I'm sorry the reproduction is so bloody small here, but if you come up real close to your PC monitor and squint, you'll realize what it is your are seeing; eighteen thousand U.S. Soldiers standing in a formation of the Stature of Liberty.  There is no date to the photo, but the uniform suggest it would have been during the World War One years.  It does state that it was posed and taken at Camp Dodge in Iowa.  When I first saw it, I knew immediately it was something I had to share with my loyal airmen.

And there you have it, airmen.  Fall colors are filling the New Hamshire landscape, political debates and annoying ads fill the airwaves and our beloved Red Sox took game one in the play-offs against the Anaheim Angels, beating them 4 to 1.  All in all, I think its been a great week.  I hope the same for you.  See you in seven.
Ron – Over & Out