Greetings Loyal Airmen, here we are rolling into December, the last month of 2011 and only four weeks away from Christmas.  Time is certainly racing by.  Today saw the release of a comic book the Air Chief his extremely proud of and we really hope you'll want to check it out. For the longest time, when attending comic convention, we are often asked by young boys and girls just how comics are put together. How do you make a comic book? And of course the Air Chief and his many colleagues do their best and try to answer that question, whereas the only books out there that deal with the subject are these heavy, thick hardback books that generally are too expensive for young kids to buy.  Thus the Air Chief always wondered, why not do a HOW TO BOOK as a comic book?  After talking it over with my Mr. Jigsaw co-creator, artist Gary Kato and our editor at Redbud Studio, Rob Davis, all of us agreed it was an idea worth pursuing.  Six months later that project has become a reality.

The first ever Mr.Jigsaw Special is a black and white 44 page comic whose main theme is to teach young writers and artists how to make a comic book.  In the book, Mr. Jigsaw travels the globe to interview the Air Chief, Gary and Rob separately and from each learns a new segment of the entire process.  Here is page one of this fun adventure.

                       
In Fort Collins, the Air Chief gives Mr. Jigsaw an actual script for a 10 pg comic story.  The script is printed in the comic.  Next Jiggy goes to Honolulu where he delivers that strip to Gary Kato, who then proceeds to show him how he breaks it down, does composition roughs etc. and from page to page the readers get to see the story come to graphic life.  Finally the Man of a Thousand Parts arrives with the completed in Hallsville, Missouri where Rob Davis and his son Ryan explain how they digitally scan the finished art and then format those pages for the printer.  From start to finish, the entire process is laid out in a fun journey.

It is our hope that this comic will become an invaluable reference for the future comic book writers and artists of tomorrow, that they will learn from it and be inspired by it to make their own dreams come true.  The book sells for $3.75 and is only available on line from (www.IndyPlanet.com) and we think makes a perfect stocking stuffer for that young comic book fanatic in your family.  We hope you'll agree.

Sticking with our comic theme this week, we thought we'd remind you of a little project we're working on with artist Brian Level.  A few weeks ago we gave you a sneak peek at Brian's rough sketch of space captain, Jain Marlee who stars in this story called THE SMUGGLER'S LAMENT.  Brian's been hard at work bring it to life and above is the first page complete except for the lettering.  To say we're thrilled and delighted would be a gross understatement.  Brian is a truly gifted artist and doing wonders with our little script.  Of course we aren't going to reveal all of it here.  Ultimately when completed, it will appear in several comic anthologies and we'll be sure to let you know at that time.  Brian is a joy to work with and the Air Chief is hoping this is the first of many of our collaborations.

And finally this week the Red Sox finally announced their new manager as veteran Bobby Valentine.  At 61, Valentine was both manager for the Texas Rangers and New York Mets and even managed a Japanese team to a championship.  He's no stranger to big market baseball as its played in Boston and we wish him all the luck in the world get the Sox back on track come 2012.

And there you have it, Loyal Airmen.  We hope you'll pick up a copy of the first ever Mr.Jigsaw Special and make some young comic fan very, very happy.  It will certainly put a smile on our face. 

Ron – Over & Out!