OFFICIAL LOGO OF THE CHAMPION CITY COMIC CON

Greetings Loyal Airmen. It is hard for me to believe an entire week has gone by since the Air Chief was sitting here writing about his having to hit the sack early for his morning trip to the airport and the beginning of his weekend in Springfield, Ohio for the second annual Champion City Comic Con.  And now it has all come and gone and left us  in a bit of a happy daze.  Loyal Airmen, the Air Chief is here to tell you that show was by far the best single con experience we have ever enjoyed, and believe me we've been to lots of cons in the past thirty years of our involvement with comics.  Our heartfelt thanks immediately go to Scott Riley who invited us to be a guest at the show with all expenses paid and to our good buddy, Chuck Moore, who picked up our travel cost as a gift from Comic Related, our home on the internet.  These two men and a guy named Bill Gladman are totally responsible for that amazing weekend.

        
            Bill Gladman, Chris Metzer & the Air Chief
The actual Saturday convention is held on the beautiful grounds of the Wittenberg Community College.  And shortly after arriving in Springfield, my host, Bill Gladman and his daughter Raichel drove me through the campus. That afternoon the Air Chief participated in his first ever round of Disc Golf, a game Bill is quite fond of and very good at.  (We call it Frisbee Gold here in the east.)  Anyway, we had three teams of two, one a veteran player and the other a rookie.  The photo above shows the Air Chief taking pointers from his partner, artist Chris Metzer.  Chris is also a resident of Springfield and often competes with Bill.  Well after two hours of walking through this lovely campus and tossing that old plastic disc around, the game came down to the ninth and final hole.  Well, actually they are stanchions on which is a bowl and net. Chris and the Air Chief were a good thirty feet away from it after our first shot tied with Bill and his partner, Eric Radcliff.  The hole is a three shot and at that distance we all figured we'd par and end the game in a tie.  Until, that is, we took our second toss and the disc made a direct line right into the basket…and won us the game!!  The victory was very sweet indeed.

       
                      The Air Chief, Lisa Moore, Scott Riley, Raichel & Bill Gladman
After the game we drove across town to visit con promoter, Scott Riley at his great comic shop, Main Street Comics & Games.  Scott is a super fellow and we were thrilled meet him at long last.  Above is a shot of the Air Chief, comic colorist Lisa Moore, Scott and Raichel Gladman and her dad, Bill Gladman taken in the shop. Later that night Scott hosted a dinner at a local steak house and there were thirty-five of us in attendance. Many my friends from the Comic Related website where we have our forums.  All of us had a great time catching up and for many of us it was the very first time we ever met face to face.  We were naturally excited about the coming day and the convention.

          
                              Lisa Moore, Chuck Moore, Brant Fowler & the Air Chief
And then it was Saturday morning and we were all converging on the Wittenberg campus where the actual con was being held.  What an absolutely great venue for a comic show.  And as stated earlier, many of the creators on hand were all members of the Comic Related family as seen above.  Colorist supreme Lisa Moore, the founder and head honcho at Comic Related, Chuck Moore, comic writer & letterer Brant Fowler and of course the Air Chief. Note our spanking new Airship 27 shirt we had custom made by an airbrush artist just for the show. It really came out great.

         
                                        The Air Chief & Ms. Raichel Gladman
Later that day the Air Chief was the star of his own panel and Bill's daughter, Raichel, was the host. She is such a wonderful young lady and gave me a truly marvelous introduction.  She's a dear and we've become very, very fond of her.  Bill's a lucky Dad.

         
                                                   The Air Chief & Scott Simmons
Sorry to repeat ourselves, but we truly met so many great people at this show, not the least of which was artist Scott Simmons who did the beautiful cover to our latest Mr.Jigsaw issue # 7. Scott was on hand to say hi and pose with us and that super cover. The original black and white art for that cover was featured in a museum show on graphic art that Scott recently participated in.  Now just how cool is that?  Jiggy in a museum.

        
                  And the winner is…..Jiggy!
Speaking of our break-apart hero, he won an award!  Honest. One of the last events of the day was the presentation of the Champion City Con Awards and the winner of the Best Continuing Independent Series went to Mr.Jigsaw – Man of a Thousand Parts by yours truly and Gary Kato.  It was the icing on the cake for this truly amazing weekend.  The trophy is gorgeous and will soon have a place of honor in our new office when we soon relocate Hangar 27 in the foothills of Colorado.  It gets closer every day, Loyal Airmen.  Anyway that's our report on the Champion City Comic Con.  We truly hope to get back there again next year. We had so much fun, we certainly want to do it again.

Meanwhile we are back at the old NH Hangar 27 and once again tackling the Herculean task of packing up for the big move.  Only a few more weeks now.  Take care and see you here again next week.
Ron – Over & Out.