Greetings Loyal Airmen, well, after the awful Covid Year of 2020, with no cons or events, we’re happy to report that tomorrow, 14th Aug, Gryphons Games & Comics here in Fort Collins will be hosting this year’s Free Comic Book Day. This is an annual event and one we sorely missed last year.

It’s a chance for local creators to appear and mix with local comic fans all day long. Whereas the Air Chief had commissioned a brand new convention banner at the end of 2019 which once picked up, never had a chance to be opened and displayed. And so all that changes tomorrow. Above is our good friend, Calvin Hyland, who assisted the Air Chief last weekend in taking out the banner and setting it up for the very first time. It’s all good to go and we can’t wait for our friends to see it.

On other news, the 7 min radio melodrama we wrote, “Night Army” produced by that British internet radio studio is now available for download sale at their website. See link below.

(https://www.evcol.com/store/Night-Army-by-Ron-Fortier-p381967892)

On the comic book front, artist Mike Belcher continues to work on our Black Bat graphic novel project. This past week, he took a breather from the actual panel pages to knock out this fantastic pin-up piece. As always the coloring is by his also talented son, Aiden.

Finally the Air Chief has always loved animation and this past week saw the premier of Disney Plus’ MARVEL – What If…? It is a look at familiar Marvel characters as they might have been handled on alternate world. In chapter one, we get a Captain Carter instead of Captain America, whereas Steve Rogers ends up being a WWII version of Iron Man. All in all the writing was great, but it was the stellar animation that blew us away. For years Marvel hired out their animated projects to cheap studios and always came in a distant second to DC’s Warner Bros. animation series and DVD. Now, with first last the SPIDER-VERSE film and now this series, Marvel has boldly announced it is going to do animation right and we couldn’t be happier.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, this week we kick of our Flight Log with something completely different.

A while back writer Lou Mougin sent us a manuscript containing several stories all of which take place withing inner-world of computers. Think something like Disney’s Tron movies. wherein the characters are actual programs. Whereas Lou’s stories were all mysteries and his main character is a private eye investigation them. Well we loved the stories and accepted the manuscript for publication at which time began a year long hunt for the right artist to do the nine interior illustrations. We knew going in this would be no easy task. And then one day we saw artwork on line by an artist named Fer Calvi.

Fer has a very unique approach to styling his art, some of is realistic, while other times very, very cartoony. So we contacted him and explained the concept of Joe Computer Private Eye. Fer liked the idea a great deal and signed on, saying he would work on developing a particular style directly for this book. Well, after a few months of trial and error, last evening he sent us the two images you see above. We think they are amazing and perfect for this particular project. And more then ever we are thrilled to get it into production at long last. Stay tuned, Loyal Airmen, as ever we’ll keep you posted.

Last year Airship 27 published KILLING SHADOWS, the first Jon Shadows adventure writer Teel James Glenn. Artist Tedd Lehman provided the interior illustrations. Well we’re happy to report the second book in the series, DEADLY SHADOWS is now in production and Tedd has joined us on this project as well having just turned in his first two illustrations. He’s a terrific artist and Art Director will provide the cover when the book is finished.

Our good friend and fellow writer Mark Vander Zanden recently moved and brought all his New Pulp books with him. Above is his new book case, the top three shelves are ALL Airship 27 Production titles. Now that’s a Loyal Airmen. Thanks so much for your continued support, Mark.

And that’s a wrap for this week’s Flight Log, Loyal Airmen. As Ever thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you all here next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen.

A few years ago I wrote a short western story called “The Quiet Place” for Scaldcrow Games and delighted to announce the book is now available at the link below.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/359665/Six-Gun-Red–Characters-and-Stories-for-Wild-West-Horse-Opera?src=newest. If you’re into rpgs, you might want to check this out.

Meanwhile we’re thrilled to announced the released of our latest title, SHERLOCK HOLMES – Conulting Detective Vol 17. We showed you a sneak peek of the cover, and here it is complete with logo etc as drawn by artist Chris Rawding and designed by Art Director Rob Davis, who in turn did all the 12 black and white interior illustrations. Writers I.A. Watson, R.A. Jones, Jon Casey and George Tackes provide the brand new mysteries in this volume. And it is now available at Amazon in both paperback and on Kindle. As always, thanks so much for your continued support.

POST COVID BLOW-OUT SALE

Prior to the start of 2019, we at Airship 27 Productions had stocked up our inventory to handle the shows we hoped to attend later that year. When the Covid shut-down happened, we were left with those books still in their boxes. Then as the year continued, we went and produced another twenty new titles, none of which ever saw a convention table. All our considerable 2020 sales, for which we thank all our loyal supporters, were done via on-line ordering from Amazon. Now here we are in 2021 and in Sept., after a year and a half absence, Airship 27 will be in attendance at the Windy City Paper & Pulp Convention. This, though a really wonderful thing, presents us with a huge problem.  1) How do we sell all that back inventory? and 2) which of the new books should be bring with us? After examining lots of various options available to us, Airship 27 has decided on turning this challenge into a fantastic sales opportunity for you, our loyal fans.

All new titles on our tables at the con will sell for $12.  That’s a saving of $3 per book off the convention price and $5 off suggested retail. We will also have our Bargain Box containing those titles over three years old which, as always, will sell for $4 each. But we simply cannot bring every single title we’ve released since 2019 and that’s where we need your help in a big way. If you are planning on attending Windy City and plan on taking advantage of this one time only Airship 27 blow-out sale, then you will need to visit our website and there pick those titles you want to buy from us. Then you need to e-mail Art Director Rob Davis (robmdavis@me.com) with your list of those titles.  Rob will order just those books under your name and we will have them at the show specifically for you. Here is the link to our site. (https://robmdavis.com/Airship27Hangar/airship27hangar.html)

Your request should be in to Rob no later than 14^th Aug. allowing us three weeks before the con start of 9^th Sept.

And that’s all for this week Loyal Airmen, as always, thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you back here next week.

Ron Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, and welcome to this week’s Flight Log. As you’ll recall, our last entry was relatively short and we left off hoping today’s would have a little more fun stuff to share. Well check out the picture below.

One of the Air Chief’s good friends here in Fort Collins, is Mike Baron, one of the all time great comic book writers, having won the Eisner Award twice. He’s famous for having created both Nexus, with Steve Rude, and the Badger. Well a day after we got home from the hospital after our prostate surgery, Mike left me a message suggesting we get together and that he had something for me. We in return asked if he and his lovely wife, Ann, would like join the Air Chief and Val for breakfast the following Sat. at a local restaurant. It had been a long while since all four of us had hooked up. Mike happily agreed.

So last Sat morning Val and the Air Chief arrive at the restaurant to find the Barons awaiting us, and Mike holding this toy airship in his hands. It was something he’d picked up at flea market many years ago, still in the package and all. Knowing of our love of airships, he wanted me to have it. We were bowled over by his thoughtfulness. Having good friends is the real treasure in life. Then we all sat down to eat and share each others company for the next hour. It was a really fun time and one we need to do more often. Meanwhile, thanks again, Mike, we’ve already placed it on a shelf in our office.

And while ago we reported how Aiden Belcher had joined us and artist Gary Kato in getting “Return to Never Land” back in print. This was a 52 full color comic Gary and the Air Chief had done for Malibu comics ages ago and it has long since been out of print. Whereas Gary and the Air Chief had all the original pages in our possession, all that required in getting a new edition published via Rob Davis’ Redbud Studio comics was finding a super talented colorist. And us good fortune would have it, we find that fellow in artist Mike Belcher’s son, Aiden. As you recall, Mike and the Air Chief, along with Aiden, are currently producing a brand new Black Bat graphic novel. Anyways, here are two more completed Peter Pan pages by Aiden. We love them and know that when completed, this new edition is going to be fantastic.

And finally, Airship 27 is currently producing author Teel James Glenn terrific sword and sorcery novel called “Dragonthroat” with amazing artist Chris Nye doing the interior illustrations. Above is the most recent we wanted to share with you.  If you enjoy S & S adventures, you won’t want to miss this one.

And that’s a wrap for this week, Loyal Airmen.  As ever thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you all here next Friday morning.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, as many of your know the Air Chief writes a regular book review blog on the internet called “Pulp Fiction Reviews Blog.” Simply type that into your browser it will pull it up. We’ve been at that for almost twenty years. Lots of reviews done in that time. Whereas we tend to keep this weekly Flight Log to our other interest. But every now and then a book comes our way we really have to share with all you Loyal Airmen.

“Five Decembers” by James Kestrel is a murder mystery that takes place during World War II and is a truly powerful, amazing book. The crime happens in Honolulu a week before the attack on Pearl Harbor, 7th Dec 1941 and the detective spend the next five years chasing the killer. It is nothing short of a great book and one we can’t recommend highly enough. Please, if you love great fiction, find this book.

Finally, whereas there isn’t much new to report on at all this week, the Air Chief still recovering ever so slow from his recent surgery, we thought we’d treat you to some Sherlock Holmes goodies. We are currently assembling Consulting Detective Vol 17 which will feature this stunning dramatic cover by artist Chris Rawding and five amazing new mysteries.  Look for it to come your way in another week or two.  And that’s it from here. Hopefully we’ll have more to relate next week. Till then thanks for stopping by.

Ron  – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, well the Air Chief is back though minus a pesky organ. Just one week ago we were admitted into the Medical Center of the Rockies, one of the finest hospitals in Colorado, where surgeon Dr. Lee removed my cancerous prostate gland.

All of this was on Thursday. Valerie and our beautiful granddaughter were with me at the hospital and Cora snapped these pictures of us only a few hours after the surgery had been successfully concluded. Everything went like clockwork, we were told and that the Air Chief would most likely be on his way home the very next morning.

Sure enough, the following morning Dr. Lee met with us for an hour explaining what recovery would be like in the weeks and months ahead. He cautioned us to take things slow, ala no quick four miles walk but go back to building up our strength gradually. Our body has to get used to a whole new plumbing system and that too is going to take some hard work, but we are committed to doing all of it. With that the Doc gave us the green light to get the hell out of there and within two hours look was back home sitting behind the desk in his office ready to get rocking and rolling again.

Right now, we want to thank all you wonderful, Loyal Airmen, who kept us in your prayers during this entire matter. Those prayers sustained every single day, lifting us up to Our Loving Creator. We will be forever grateful to each and every one of you the rest of of our lives.

And since we didn’t want this Flight Log to be simply an Air Chief medical report, we wanted to leave you with this latest on the proposed Brother Bones series. After several unsuccessful attempts to sell the concept to a TV streaming service, the producers handling Bones this past week managed to get original book in the hands of a very well known and successful Hollywood writer/director who may be interested in producing a “pilot” episode. So not great news we’d hoped for by now, but the project is still active and moving in a positive direction. Rest assured we will keep all of you Loyal Airmen posted on any changes in that status. Till then, we keep all fingers crossed.

And there you have this week’s Flight Log. Thanks ever for stopping by,

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, by the time you read this, the Air Chief will be home from the hospital. Yesterday, we entered the Medical Center of the Rockies where our cancerous prostate was surgically removed. And if all went as planned, the Air Chief should be on his way home today to begin a six week recovery course. Happily the cancer was caught very early and the prognosis after its removal is really great. Still, any and all prayers to aid us in the weeks of recovery would be greatly appreciated. Okay, now let’s get back to some serious FUN stuff.

Recently artist Chris Nye has begun doing the illustrations for writer Teel James Glenn’s new fantasy adventure novel entitled DRAGONTHROAT and above is his second of nine piece. Chris is such a gifted artist and we are thrilled to have him aboard the Airship 27 team. And let’s not forget Teel’s tremendous talent. He’s won many awards including the Pulp Factory Award for last year’s novel, “A Cowboy in Carpathia.” It’s obvious he and Chris make a great team on this project. Can’t wait to show you more.

Finally, and very happily, we managed to get out our latest Airship 27 Pulp novel on Wednesday. WU DANG – Return of the Wanderer is the third book in writer Barbara Doran’s excellent fantasy adeventure filled with lots of Chinese magic and martial arts. Gary Kato provided interior illustrations and Rob Davis the cover. As ever available now at Amazon in both paperback and on Kindle. Always thanks for you continually support.

As ever, thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you back here (minus a prostate) this time next week.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, below is Press Release from Pulp Fest that came out on Monday.

he PulpFest Organizing Committee is pleased to announce that eleven individuals and one organization have been nominated by their peers for the 2021 Munsey Award. This annual award is named after Frank A. Munsey — the man who published the first pulp magazine. It recognizes an individual or organization that has bettered the pulp community, be it through disseminating knowledge about the pulps or through publishing or other efforts to preserve and foster interest in the pulp magazines we all love and enjoy. Congratulations to all of the nominees for this prestigious award presented annually at PulpFest.

The nominees listed below — who received multiple nominations — will be forwarded to a committee made up of all the living Lamont, Munsey, and Rusty Award winners who will select the recipient of this year’s Munsey Award.

The fellow names and their respective credit works were listed in alphabetical order.  John Bentancourt, Richard Bleiler,Gene Christie,William Contento,Rich Harvey,Chris Kalb,Gary Phillips,Sheila Vanderbeek, Howard Wright & Dan Zimmer. Topping the list was the one organization – Airship 27 Productions.

The image above is only a portion of the framed print given out to the winner. Honestly, the Air Chief and Art Director Rob Davis are thrilled in the fact that the nomination did not single out an individual but the actual Airship 27 Productions, which is a testament to all our writers and artists who over the years have made the Airship 27 fly so high. This is YOUR nomination Loyal Airmen can’t thank you enough for that.

Making it official, Loyal Airmen, THE ADVENTURES OF RADIO RITA is happening and Teel James Glenn, Gene Moyers, Mel Odom & Samantha Lienhard have signed on. Each will write an adventure on the very brief little physical outline the Air Chief wrote up for her. Meaning, they have nothing but her weight, height, color of eyes and hair and the one fact that she is a pilot. The rest, as they say, will be up to them…and we can’t wait to see what they deliver, each putting their own unique stamp on our gal.

And finally we are currently in production of Volume 17 of our bestselling series – Sherlock Holmes : Consulting Detective. This one will feature 5 new stories with Art Director Rob Davis as always doing all the interior illustrations. Above is a sneak-peek at one of these, this one from a story by R.A. Jones we found particular touching. Scene has Doctor Watson assisting a young boy in the burying of his pet dog. Trust us, Loyal Airmen, this is one Sherlock Holmes story you won’t want to miss.

And there you have, Loyal Airmen, this week’s Flight Log. As ever thanks for stopping by and we’ll hopefully see you back here next Friday morning.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, well summer has hit with a sledgehammer these past weeks across the country with temperatures rising to 100 everywhere. Time to stay indoors and hydrate Loyal Airmen. Watch all outdoor activities and be smart. Now to some fun stuff.

Perhaps the greatest treasures all of us have in this world is our families. The Air Chief is well aware he’s been blessed with the most amazing family ever. Above is our middle son Kevin who recently sent along this photo of him with his new electric guitar. Whereas we’re the writing dude, Kevin’s God given gift is music and he does it extremely well. While his older brother Scott is a train enthusiast and has made more model train sets than we can remember. Again, all wonderful talents that we share with the world.

Whereas the Air Chief has two younger brothers, George (above) who resides in Massachusetts and Paul. who makes his home in Vermont. In the past year or so, George and his wife Anne have become huge pickle-ball players in their town. So what with Father’s Day coming this weekend, George’s grandkids gifted him with this shirt that read – PAPA IS MY NAME – PICKLE BALL IS MY GAME!!!  Ha, ha, ha. We love it…as much as his four wonderful grandkids love him.

Many, many moons ago, artist Gary Kato and the Air Chief produced a two-part comic book for Malibu Comics then subsidiary line called Adventure Comics. It was called PETER PAN – Return to Neverland and after they had published both issues (in full color mind you) they then later collected them both in one comic package. Gary and the Air Chief were always very proud of this little gem and over the years gave away all of our own copies, while happily holding on to the original black and white pages. Over the past few years, attending more and more comic shows here in Colorado, we began to wonder if it might be possible to republish that Peter Pan comic via our own on-demand printing as we did with our Mr. Jigsaw comics, again through Rob Davis’ Redbud Studio imprint. So we reached out to Mort Todd who had in the past colored Jiggy stories for us and asked if he might be interested in joining us on the project. Mort agreed, but after the lost year of covid, he found himself backed up with so many of his own projects, he finally had to admit there was just no way he could possible find time to color 51 pages of comics for us. So it seemed that the Peter Pan book would never again see the light of publication. Then, a few weeks ago, while talking with artist Mike Belcher about our new Black Bat graphic novel, it suddenly hit the Air Chief that Mike’s son, who has always colored his books and is now doing a great job on the Black Bat pages would do a great job with Peter Pan. We put the offer to Aiden over a Skype chat one afternoon and much to our delight, he agreed to join our team and color those pages. We were back on track.

Above are the first two pages Aiden has completed. Upon receiving them digitally, we immediately shared them with Gary and he, as expected, flipped out. They are beautiful. Aiden is doing a super job with his colors and now it looks like, after almost thirty years, PETER PAN – Return to Neverland is about to get a second life in a brand new Redbud Studio edition we will be publishing via Amazon. Stay tuned, Loyal Airmen, we’ll certainly keep you all posted.  Wahoooo!

And there you have this week’s Flight Log Loyal Airmen. As ever thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, in this week’s Flight Log we want to talk a wee bit about our favorite movie of all time, the original 1933 KING KONG from RKO. The film was a huge hit when it had a duel premier on both coast of the country, one at RKO Radio Music Hall in New York and the other at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles. It was the first movie ever to earn a million dollars. As was done in those days, films were released, shown and then put back in the vaults for a few years before they would be re-released to a hopefully new audiences. That’s what happened in 1955 and our father decided to take his son, 9 yr old Ronnie, to see it. The film imprinted itself on our psyche so much, we would never forget it or that experience of viewing for the very first time. The story of a gigantic wild beast torn from his home to be displayed and humiliated by a world of sophisticated cruelty bothered us greatly so that at the film’s powerful climax, as the bi-planes swoop out of the sky to attack the Mighty Kong making his last stand on the top of the Empire State Building, little Ronnie was actually rooting for the Big Gorilla and it broke our hearts when he was finally shot down.

This incredible story was the created by two World War One veterans, Major Merian C. Cooper, a highly decorated Annapolis graduate and aviation ace and his pal, film photographer Ernest B. Shoedstack.  Cooper had been brought to RKO because the company was failing and it was his job to save it. After trashing several dozen scripts he found pathetic, he went to the studio’s special effects guru with his idea about a giant gorilla.

That guru was the amazing Willis O’Brien and his team of Mario Larrinaga and Byron Crabbe. These were the pioneers who invented stop-motion animation, the magic by which inanimate options move on film. Cooper had seen their work on the previous silent classic, “The Lost World” and knew O’Brien was his Merlin to work his big monkey comes to cinematic. Once a script was set, and Shoedstack was on board to direct, they hired Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot and the beautiful Faye Ray as the three characters whose lives are forever changed by their encounter with King Kong.

And though we’ve seen the movie hundreds of times (no exaggeration there) the film still to this day moves us emotionally. Enough so that over the years we’ve continue to buy various versions of the novelized script. In fact it is still one of our biggest dreams to one day write a graphic novel detailing the making of this classic movie and reveal the events and characters that made it possible.

Meanwhile whenever new Kong toys appear on the market, we have to have them, relishing the memory of that 9 year old boy mesmerized by movie magic. Above our two of our biggest pieces, the one on the right was a gift from a friend, Michael Housel.

Above left is a tiny Kong figure sent to us from Emily Janke as she picked it up during her trip to the Empire State building and was so kind to gift it to us. To the right is our tin-poster displayed on the Air Chief’s office wall.

And finally our latest toy acquisition picked up earlier this week at Target. Seems someone got the rights to the 1933 figure and has produce three different variations. This one was the one we chose to add to our Kong collection. King Kong will always remain our favorite movie of all times.

And now for something totally different. Way back in the Fall of 2019, artist Jeff Slemons asked if we’d be interested in writing a few short strips centered around automobiles. Jeff had been working as an illustrator for CARtoons magazine for a while and his editor was asking him for more short strips. The Air Chief had never done anything like this and that was all the incentive we needed. In the following weeks we wrote two five pages scripts and sent them off to Jeff. Before he could draw single panel, 2020 and Covid was upon us and lots of things got put aside, including these scripts. Then about a month ago, out of the blue, Jeff sends along a PDF containing the finished strip for “Yellow Whizzer.” Only now it is merely called “Whizzer” and is featured in issue # 33 of CARtoons currently on newsstands everywhere. We found out copy at Barnes and Nobles. When reporting this great news, Jeff confessed to having embellished my skinny script and we had absolutely no problems with that. It is still the story we cooked up, only now with much more characterization and dialog and we love it. It appears on pg # 20, with Jeff’s credit. Don’t let my name being absent concern you. We did this for fun, and that’s exactly what we received in the end. Can’t ask for anything more. Who knows, hopefully Jeff will soon get around to do the second script we sent him. We sure hope so.

And that’s it for this go round Loyal Airmen. As ever thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you here next week.

Ron – Over & Out!