Greeting Loyal Airmen.  It would seem fitting as we head into President's Day weekend and celebrate the one American holiday devoted to romance, Valentine's Day, that we should spotlight several truly beautiful women in this entry of the Flight Log.  And we'll start with a blast from the past.  One of the highlights of the Air Chief's comic book career was writing the Green Hornet series for Now Comics back in the early 1980s.  My artist on that project was the super talented Mr. Jeff Butler.  Towards the end of our run on the character, Jeff and the Air Chief put together a five issue mini-series starring the old serial version of the green clad hero and called it, The Sting of the Green Hornet.  To this day, most fans believe it to be one of the finest Hornet stories ever presented and Jeff and the Air Chief have always been very proud of it.

            
The plot involves a group of Nazis spies led by a gorgeous blond who attempt to kidnap President Franklin Roosevelt and replace him with an impostor.  Recently one of Jeff's many fans, remembering the series with much fondness, commissioned him to draw a bogus cover piece for his private collection.  Jeff was so thrilled and happy with how the art came out, he enthusiastically sent me a digital copy and we, in turn, and are delighted to share it with all you Loyal Airmen.  It's really one of the best GH covers Jeff has ever done, albeit a wee bit risque.  It seems both Jeff and the Air Chief will forever be connected with this classic character. My brand new Green Hornet short story will be appearing in Moonstone books' new prose anthology due out this summer.

As all you Loyal Airmen are aware, Ye Old Air Chief loves writing pulp stories of classic heroes from the 1930s and 40s. Ten years ago we stumbled on a collection of terrific stories featuring a scientific detective named I.V.Frost and his sexy assistant, a honey blond named Jean Moray.  They were the inventions of one of pulpdom's most creative writers, Donald Wandrei.  That book, with its gorgeous cover by artist Les Edwards, is pictured above.  We had long since forgotten about the character until a few weeks ago when, while discussing my new Avenger story with Moonstone's editor/publisher, Joe Gentile, the conversation turned to Frost.  It seemed Joe had come across a copy of the same book, read it and been wowed by the entire series.  When Ye Old Air Chief soundly echoed those exact same feelings, Joe asked if we'd be interested in writing new Frost stories for Moonstone, both in prose and comic form.  You can believe, Loyal Airmen, it didn't take us long to give him an answer.  Earlier this evening we sent Joe our first I.V.Frost short story and next week we will begin working on the first ever Frost comic book adventure.  Stay tuned.  We'll certainly keep you all posted as to where and when these tales will be appear in print.

        
                      The Domino Lady & Athena Voltaire

Finally, we have to tell you about Athena Voltaire.  She is a comic book pulp hero created by artist/writer Steve Bryant as sort of a female Indiana Jones and over the past few years she has appeared in several comic book series from Ape Entertainment.  Several months ago, Steve wrote us that he was hoping to put together an anthology of Athena Voltaire prose stories and asked if the Air Chief would like to do one?  Again, not a hard question at all.  Athena Voltaire is one of the coolest pulp characters ever invented and we jumped at the chance to write one of her action adventures.  Over last weekend we finished “Athena Voltaire and the Austrian Prisoner,” and sent it off to Steve.  We also let all our friends on Facebook know we'd completed the project and we're very happy with how it all came out.  One of the people to read that post was our pulp amigo, Ray Riethmeier and he immediately sent us a digital copy of a pin-up he had commissioned Steve to do for him a while back.  It featured two of pulpdom's classiest femme fatales, the Domino Lady and Athena.  It's a beautiful piece and Ray was most kind to allow the Air Chief to share it with all of you.  Again, once we know when this particular book will be out, we'll spread the good word right here as usual.

And that about wraps it up for this fun week, Loyal Airmen. But first two special family wishes.  The first is a get well wish to our oldest son, Scott, who was operated on yesterday for a deviated septum.  All went well and he is recovering just fine, although the area affected is going to be sore for a while yet.  And secondly, our oldest daughter, Michelle, turns 40 tomorrow.  She'll probably want to shoot me for publicizing that, but there was no way the Air Chief wasn't going to wish her a wonderful, Happy Birthday.  She is a truly beautiful daughter, a great mother and devoted wife.  Valerie and the Air Chief are so very, very proud of her.

There you have it.  Share Valentine's Day with your better half, and we'll see you all back here next week.
Ron- Over & Out.