Greetings Loyal Airmen, last week we showed up a brand new Mr. Jigsaw illustration by artist Mike Belcher of Kentucky.  It was awesome and we loved it. Well, Mike did another this past week and this one pays homage to a very special Silver Age Comic.

Way back when, DC Comics got the idea of putting two of their heroes into one comic series and thus was born Green Lantern – Green Arrow team up written by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by Neal Adams. The idea was to have two heroes (one conservative & one liberal) travel an America quickly becoming divided and deal with those issues that were in fact dividing us. To find common ground, if you will. The series as a whole broke new ground in making comics more relevant to a younger generation. Whether you approved or disapproved, it made comic history. And that was the image Mike found to pay homage to in this wonderful drawing of his own original hero, The Man in the Mask, hooking up with our lovable Mr. Jigsaw. It’s a beautiful drawing and we truly do love it.  Thanks, Mike!

Because this year’s Windy City Pulp & Paper convention was postponed, the Air Chief and Rob Davis made a short You Tube video announcing this years winners of the Pulp Factory Awards.

For Best Novel – NIGHTVEIL – Crisis at the Crossroads of Infinity by Bobby Nash – Pro Se Productions

For Best Short Story – The Death of Robin Hood by I.A. Watson from “The Legend of Robin Hood” Airship 27

For Best Anthology – Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar – Editor Tommy Hancock – Moonstone Books.

For Best Cover – Artist Douglas Klauba for Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar – Moonstone Books.

For Best Illustrations – Artist Howard Simpson from the book Bulldog Drummond – On Poisoned Ground, – Airship 27 Productions.  Our congratulations to all our super talented winners.

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

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we truly hope all of you had a wonderful Easter Holiday, despite being isolated from your religious communities due to the Covid-19 virus threat. We watched the Catholic mass via TV as broadcast from the beautiful cathedral in Denver. When all this has past, we hope we can take a trip south and see that magnificent church up close. Of course the isolation would most likely have been the norm without the health threat as Mother Nature opted to give us a White Easter. Yup, snowed all day Easter Sunday and today, Monday, it is still falling out there as the Air Chief looks out his office window.  Am going to be so happy when winter is finally over for good. Spring can’t get here soon enough.

Last week we gave you a peek at a comic page being illustrated by artist Cesar Feliciano from our project JIN & TONIC. Well, Cesar completed this action packed page and it looks absolutely fantastic. We hope you’ll agree. All that remains to be added now is sound effects and colors. We are still extremely excited about this project and hope we can eventually get it in print. All fingers crossed.

Despite the social quarantine we find ourselves in, there are always glimmers of hope and sunshine as the picture of our Mom, Gabrielle Fortier, taken last week by Samantha James, the social director at the senior facility where she lives. She’s doing great and we thank God for that every day.

So it seems our titling this particular Flight Log was most appropriate because today, April 16th we awoke to 8 inches of new white stuff blanketed Northern Colorado. And two days ago it was over 60 degrees. Honestly, it is beginning to get a wee bit tiresome.

Finally we leave this week with this great illustration Gary Kato did for us a few years ago when we had this idea for a comic character called AMERICAN AMAZON. The concept was she a golden age character published during the 40s and little known today. Then in our story, she is revived in the modern world to take up her battle against injustice. The project never got off the ground for multiple reasons, but recently we were talking to another comic book artist and mentioned this series. He liked the idea a great deal and wants to talk more about it. So we’ll keep our fingers crossed and see what happens. As ever we’ll keep you posted.

Ron – Over & Out.

Greetings Loyal Airmen, as we continue to live through the current health threat, the Air Chief is extremely proud of his family and friends who have all rolled up their sleeves and are determined to follow the guidelines set by health officials and our President to make this awful virus go away quickly as is humanly possible.

Of course if you are a writer or artist, then this new self-imposed isolation isn’t really anything new, as our work is pretty much done in our inner sanctums. Thus we tend to look at this time as a period where we can be super productive in doing new stories, books and comic strips. One such artist with such a positive attitude is our friend Mike Belcher who a few days ago surprised us with this truly awesome pin-up of our lovable super-hero, Mr. Jigsaw Man of a Thousand Parts. It was a special treat for us and we couldn’t wait to share it with all of you.

Every now and then, certain projects fall through the cracks and somehow get forgotten along the way. Several years ago, at the behest of Moonstone publishing, the Air Chief wrote a short story featuring a classic pulp detective called I.V. Frost…and three short comic strips with the character. By the time we’d finished the scripts, the intended project fell through. And after artist Jake Minor had actually illustrated one of the comic stories.  So we recruited our pal Gary Kato to draw the other two stories and Redbud Studio put out their first ever full color comic, the I.V. Frost Scientific Investigator comic.  Now a few months go back and we’re notified Moonstone was going to go ahead with an I.V. Frost prose anthology and our story would be in that collection. This would be a soft-cover paperback. Then later they would do a hard-cover edition and offer that Jake Minor completed script as a bonus feature. We loved the idea. The paperback anthology came out and it was great. But for whatever reason, Moonstone changed their plans and never did a hard-back edition. And those 8 wonderful comic pages have yet to be published. Above is page one for your enjoyment. Will it ever see print? We only just recalled it was even out there. We plan on talking with Joe Gentile at Moonstone and see what we can do…after all these years. Jake’s work is stellar and deserves to be seen and appreciated. As ever, we’ll keep you posted.

And finally we’re going to leave you with pages from two exciting projects the Air Chief is involved with. To the upper left is another page from the new spy thriller JIN & TONIC, that we are working on with artist Cesar Felicano. Soon this should be ready to post on some manner of funding site to solicit your financial aid in getting it launched. Still a ways off set. Then we have super colorist Mort Todd assisting us and artist Gary Kato in getting our old Peter Pan story, RETURN TO NEVER-NEVER LAND back in print. Originally published by Adventure Comics, we’ve taken the original black and white pages, and happily recruited Mort to re-color them for publication. His work is just amazing.  Again, we’ll keep you posted.

And as we sign off, we want to wish you all of you out there both a Happy Passover and Happy Easter. May God, in these hard times, shower all your Loyal Airmen with his love and eternal graces.  See you next week.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, once again we hope and pray all of you are being smart and staying healthy and safe. We truly support our President and the CDC’s advise on social distancing and continual safe hygiene ala washing hands often. One of the amusing aspects of all this is the fact that working at home is really nothing new for the Air Chief. As most of writing and drawing colleagues will tell you, this is pretty much our regular lifestyle. Sure, the going out to find groceries can be a bit challenging, but overall we’re maintaining a positive attitude and suggest you strong do the same.

In that vein, we’ve been delighted to see two of our current comic book projects starting to move along at a quicker pace now that these two artists are in their offices longer hours.  At upper left in full color is a page from the long awaited BLACK LION # 3 by artist Kevin A. Johnson with colors by Arrick Church. Then we have an outer space scene from the new black and white adventure BULLDOZER being drawn by our dear friend, Jon Bonjour. Jon’s finished ten pages of issue # 1 and at this rate could see both books out by mid-summer. All fingers crossed.

We are also happy to announce the release of our latest pulp novel, WU DANG – Exile of the Wanderer by Barbara Doran. This is the second book in the series featuring a Chinese martial artist named Yi Xiao now living in Old California during the Gold Rush days. He’s also part magician and his adventures pit him against all manner of weird and bizarre characters. It’s really a fun series. Gary Kato provides the interior illustrations and Art Director did the gorgeous cover above. As ever available in paperback from Amazon and soon on Kindle.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen. As ever thanks for stopping by and please, be safe out there.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, and welcome to another new Flight Log. This week the Air Chief wanted to talk a little about the self-imposed social distancing all Americans are having to adapt to because of the threat of the new Corona virus threatening all of us. For some having to stay indoors or away from friends is a real hardship whereas we tend to forget that in this country we have the technology to get close any time we desire. Thus last weekend the Air Chief got to thinking about one of our finest writers at Airship 27 Productions, Mrs. Nancy Hansen of Conn. We’d recently released her sixth novel in her amazing Jezebel Johnston Pirate Queen saga and all of us were thrilled by that. Thing is we, the Air Chief and Nancy, had only ever physically met one time prior and a long-ago pulp convention held in Arkansas along the time the entire New Pulp movement was getting started. Sure we’d exchanged hundreds of e-mails since then, but not even a single phone call. Okay, so we wrote Nancy and suggest we hook up visually via computer Skype connection. Happily she agreed and last Sat evening Nancy and the Air Chief, while actually seeing each other across country, had a wonderful hour long chat. When it was done, both of agreed we should have done it long-long ago and plan to continue hooking up like this at least once a month from now on. Bottom line is, all of you Loyal Airmen can do the exact same thing…any time you want. In the past lots of PC technology has been criticized for making us more distant from each other but in this particular time, it also has the ability to keep us together in a such a great and fun way. Give it some thought, Loyal Airmen. Maybe you’ve a friend or family member you haven’t seen in a long while. So maybe now, when cooped up, might be just the perfect time to reach out via Skype and say Hi.  As Art Director Rob Davis always says, “When life hands you lemons, time to make lemonade.”

We were hoping to have news of a new title from writer Barbara Doran but unfortunately Barbara ran into problems with her PC program and we’re going to have to wait one more week to release that book. In the meanwhile, we thought we’d let you know one of the books we are currently putting together. Way back when Airship 27 Productions was launched one of the first classic pulp heroes we brought you was Dan Fowler G-Man. He appeared for a long run in the original G-MAN magazine (see above to the left). We thought it would be great to bring this tough guy agent back and solicited our talented crew of new pulp writers to start doing just that. Pretty soon we had Volume # 1 of the new DAN FOWLER – G-MAN title out. It well enough that we didn’t wait too long to put out a second volume.  And now, after, many, many years, we are actively editing new stories for a third volume which we hope to have out by mid-summer. Trust us, Loyal Airmen, these new stories of packed with gun-blasting action and adventure you won’t want to miss.

Finally we are going to end with some truly sad news we just received yesterday. Pulp enthusiast and collector Mark Halegua passed on March 18 of medical complications. Mark was a friend and wonderful part of our New Pulp community. The Air Chief has so many fond memories of sharing fun times at both Windy City and Pulp Fest with Mark. He will be greatly missed. Mark was a diehard Yankees fan and always chided us about being Red Sox fans. It was all friendly batter and we both looked forward to it every year. Our deepest condolences to his family from all of us at Airship 27 Productions. May God have mercy on his soul and bring him to his eternal home in heaven.  Amen.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen. Due to the recent virus pandemic, the promoters of this year’s Windy City Pulp & Paper convention have opted to reschedule the show. Now it will happen between Sept 11 – 13th. This of course due the health restrictions of large gathering. Hopefully by Sept this will be behind us and the show ill go on.

In lieu of the Windy City Pulp & Paper postponement until Sept., this year’s Pulp Factory Awards Winner will be announced via a special video and Press Release. Once the actual awards have been made and addresses for the winners obtained, the Air Chief and co-host Rob Davis will do a short video announcing the winners of each of the five categories. At that same time, the actual awards will then be mailed out to each recipient. Again our thanks to Van Plexico and Gordon Dymowski for a great job handling the voting.  As soon as the video is up at You Tube, we will circulate the link and Press Release everywhere on line.

And now for some better stuff.

Our father, George Fortier, loved movies. When we were 5 yrs old he took us to a re-release of the original 1933 monster classic, KING KONG. That was in 1950. Being the first movie we ever saw, it mesmerized us. That story about the giant gorilla taken from his lost island kingdom, brought to New York City in chains only to be shot off the Empire State Building at the end. Even at 5 we actually felt sorry for Kong coming out of the theater. That movie would change our lives forever and to this remains our all time favorite. We’ve since written about it, owned it on video tape, then Blu-Ray DVD. We must watch it at least twice a year. Never ever thought we’d ever get to see it up on the big white screen again. Well, thanks to AMC and Fandango, that happened today as Valerie and the Air Chief attended a special showing of the 1933 KING KONG at our local theater. Honestly, it was as if we’d been transported back into time and we could feel the ghost of our Dad sitting there beside us throughout the filming. It was beautiful and yes, we still, at the end, cheer for the Big Gorilla…though we know he can never win.

As most of you who listen to our Airship 27 Podcast show, Rob and the Air Chief work hard as hell in finding talented artist like Clayton Murwin, seen here, to work with us. Sadly we are a small publisher and pay is pretty much peanuts. Then we see pictures like this one and the obvious joy and delight on Clayton’s face and real glad we keep at it. Clayton picked up copies of EYE OF THE DAWN, the book that he illustrated for us and was written by Brad Sinor. As we tell all our great creators, writers and artists, we promise then that their work will appear in truly beautiful fashion for all the world to see. We’d like to think that has value. Thanks Clayton, for sharing that belief.

After ten years of usage, our old convention banner was really starting to show some wear and tear. To that end Valerie suggested we get another one done up. Rob Davis was gracious enough to put together a new collage of comic and novel covers and we took it to the local Signarama here in Fort Collins where they made the gorgeous new banner you see above. We absolutely love it. Now we’re hoping there will be cons to take it to later in the year. Wish us all luck.

That’s it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  We pray all of you are safe and will do what is needed to get past this crisis. America has weathered far greater challenges in the past and we’ll all come through this stronger than ever. God bless you all.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, as many of you are aware, social media and things like Facebook aren’t for everyone. There are lots of bad things about such sites and they are well documented. But at the same time, there are positives…such as actually getting to meet really good people who share one’s likes and beliefs.

Such was the case last Saturday morning. Jim Clay is a fellow the Air Chief met on Facebook about a year ago and we soon realized we had quite a few things in common; never mind that Jim quickly became a fan of our efforts at Airship 27 Productions. Then last Thursday he notified us that he was back in Fort Collins where he and his family had lived years ago before moving to Illinois. Upon hearing this, we suggested we meet for breakfast at a local eatery and that get together transpired in such a wonderful way. Above is a photo taken by our waitress, going around from the left you have Valerie, Chancellor Clay, Mom Tracy, daughters Christiana and Katrina, then Jim and lastly the Air Chief. We spent a couple of hours chatting and getting to know each other. It was a truly awesome meeting. The Clays are truly special people and ones we are so blessed to now call friends. Here’s hoping we can do this again in the future. And Jim, that will be our treat.

A few days later the mail delivered my audio-book sets from Radio Archives. Reader Mark Finfrock does such an amazing job in capturing the essence and real sense of excitement we wanted to share with our readers when writing this Memoir. We’ve listened to the first two, of five, hours and they are just so much fun. Should any of you Loyal Airmen be interested in pick this up, merely go to (www.RadioArchives.com) Tell them the Air Chief sent you.

Years ago, the Air Chief co-authored three books with the late Ardath Mayhar, our dear writing mentor. The only one ever published by Airship 27 was WITCHFIRE. Then some nine years ago it went out of print. Something we’d overlooked until recently. Upon realizing that, we contacted Art Director Rob Davis who immediately set about putting together a brand new edition and getting it back up at Amazon where it is now and will hopefully reside for many, many years to come. It’s back available in paperback and on Kindle, as well as an audio version from Audible.com. In looking over the old reviews the book initially received upon it’s first release, we’ve started getting the temptation to revisit these characters again.  Hmm, we’ll see where that goes. Oh, and that painted cover and all the interiors illos were done by Rob.

And lastly for this week, our latest new Airship 27 Productions’ title has just been released.  “Jezebel Johnston – Sisters of Vengeance” is the sixth volume in writer Nancy Hansen’s wonderful, action packed pirate queen saga. Rob Davis, beside doing the interiors, as he has done for all previous five books, also contributed the beautiful cover you see above. If you like authentic pirate tales of adventure, you will love the Jezebel Johnston books. Available now at Amazon and as ever, thanks so much for your continued support.

Thanks for stopping by and see you back here next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, last week the Awards Committee for the annual Pulp Factory Awards announced the Official Ballot for this year’s nominees. We were thrilled to see so many Airship 27 books and creators made the final ballot. This voting is open to the public at large and below is the link to where one must go to do that. We would so appreciate you Loyal Airmen taking the time from your busy schedules to check it out and then, if you wish, cast your vote for –

Best Pulp Novel of 2019

Best Pulp Short Story of 2019

Best Pulp Cover of 2019

Best Interior Illustrations of 2019

Best Pulp Anthology/Collection of 2019

Believe us, ever single vote does count.  Thanks ever,

(https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdL42DWeUjRwJ1coHMFZ8q2I7yr2JYv_LUI8OqftNbDq7HGqg/viewform)

Meanwhile we at Airship 27 Productions continue our job of bringing you Loyal Airmen the best in New Pulp Fiction  such as the just released THE EYE OF DAWN by writer Brad Sinor.  This is a modern fantasy thrilled about immortals who live among us; some good and some not-so good. It’s an exciting adventure featuring a beautiful cover by Ted Hammond (above) and nine fantastic black and white interior illustrations by Clayton Murwin. Available now from Amazon in both paperback and on Kindle.

Shifting gears. The Air Chief served in Vietnam between 1967 & 68. Two nights before we left, we had a truly powerful and vivid dream that has stayed with us to this day.  Recently we turned that dream into a ten minute radio drama that is going to be produced as a segment of a new British on-line program. Think Twilight Zone in ten minute pieces. Our episode is entitled NIGHT ARMY and it is set to be recorded in London on April 23rd. Will keep you posted.

Finally, today marks the release of our book as an audio title from Radio Archives. We were delighted when we first learned they were going to do this version and more so when Mark Finfrock was the readers. Like all Radio Archives title, it is available in both streaming download and CD disc sets. Here’s a link to where they are found.  (https://www.radioarchives.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=285)

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

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen and as ever thanks for stopping by.  This past Monday we woke up to a really powerful winter squall that came up and over the foothills and hit Fort Collins like a slugger in a home run derby.

The Air Chief took his camera and took the shot to the left above. It was almost a white out and according to the radio alerts, traffic on I-25 came to a complete shut down and commuters all stopped due to lack of visibility. Thirty minutes later the snow was gone and the sun began to peek out. All that remained were the gust of winds and thirty minutes later they had subsided when we took the second photo to the upper right.  Oh yeah, living at the feet for the Rocky Mountains is always and adventure.

We went to see the new “Call of the Wild” movie recently. Another adaptation of the classic novel by Jack London. Lots of people we know turned their noses up to it because the studio made no secret that all the dogs and wolves seen in the film would be created via CGI (Computer Generated Images). We were a bit puzzled by that attitude especially since we’ve all been exposed to this film wizardry since the George Lucas’ Jar-Jar Binks in “Star Wars – The Phantom Menace.” Still that was an alien being and audiences were more forgiving. When viewing “Call of the Wild” the CGI is obvious enough, but even so, it works extremely well as do the actors who had to work with the process. Think back on all of the Lord of the Ring movies by Peter Jackson with lots of CGI, never mind his King Kong remake. Movie makers keep pushing the techno envelope and we’ve told it is only a matter of time before we get CGI so flawless, it would become impossible to tell the difference between it and real actor.  A close approximation was again brought forth from Lucas with their younger version of the late Peter Cushing. To say it was a bit eerie would be an understatement. So what happens when the process is perfected? Will studios be tempted to recreate deceased film stars and feature them in new projects? Imagine seeing another Marilyn Monroe or Humphrey Bogart movie? As much as that sound intriguing, is it ethical? All kinds of questions that we’ll need to grapple with as sci-fi gradually evolves into sci-facts.

The Air Chief has been very busy of late with several new comic projects including a rather unique one that we’re keeping under wraps for a while. The artist we’re working with is the amazing Jeff Slemons and we thought we’d tease you a bit with several of his loose roughs (above). Obviously these are done to give Jeff an idea on how he will compose each page for the maximum effect of the story. Later, when he’s completed them so you can actually recognize stuff, we’ll post them here. Meanwhile the rocket-school bus is a tiny hint as to what the story is about. Oh yeah, really fun stuff.

In 1964, to help promote Marvel Comics, Managing Editor Stan Lee created the Merry Marvel Marching Society, a fan club for their readers. For the small price of $1, you got a package with a membership card, certificate for framing, a sticker with Ben Grimm on it and most important of all, .45 record with Stan welcoming you and the society’s song. Pretty wild stuff for a young comic reader. Naturally the Air Chief sent in his buck and joined. On, and we forgot to mention, every single one of the thousands of kids who joined had his or her name printed in a Marvel comic book. You have to know all of then were frantic to find the comic with our names. Earlier today, a Facebook friend, Ed Chacyk, sent me the photo (on the right above) taken from a Marvel Comic. The top name on the left side column reads  Ronald Fortier – Somersworth NH.  If you don’t think seeing this page didn’t bring back a flood of fun memories. Thanks, Ed, that was most gracious of you.

And that’s it for our Flight Log this week Loyal Airmen, as ever thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, we’re going to start this week’s Flight Log with some truly exciting news. After being unable to attend PulpFest the past three years, due strictly to economic issues, Airship 27 Productions is now set to return to that wonderful convention this year. Yup, the Air Chief and his partner, artist Rob Davis will heading to Pittsburgh for the show held Aug 6th to Aug 9th. Having been a regular participants of the con while it was in Columbus, where it was launched, we’d tried stay with them when the show moved to Pittsburgh. Sadly the extra distance and poor attendance that initial year forced us to sit out the following years. Much to our dismay. We truly missed seeing so many of our friends and colleagues. Then last year the show announced a major jump in attendance; enough so that it was time for us to reconsider going back. After some lengthy discussions on how to overcome some of the remaining hurdles, we’re happy to report we came up with a travel plan that will make it feasible for us to be a part of this year’s con. In fact we announced it on our latest Airship 27 Podcast Episode # 60 which aired just a few days ago. You can find it at the You Tube link below. Bottom line here, we are thrilled and excited to be going back to PulpFest and hope you are too. Why not plan on joining us there. We’d love to see you. (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Airship+27+Podcast+%23+60)

On the comics front, LOTS of great project we’ve penned are moving along very nicely.  Going from left to right above we have. 1) Another page from the wacky DEATH DERBY, a manga inspired racing mayhem tale with art by Brian Loner. When completed, the strip will appear in several different black and white anthologies. 2) Page one a GREATER CALLING as illustrated by the fantastic Michael Belcher which introduces a brand new 40s style pulp hero, Nighshift. And finally 3) a panel from the opening sequence in the JIG & TONIK super-project we’re doing with Florida based artist Cesar Feliciano. This one is long and involved and we’re having a blast creating this truly decades long saga. As ever Loyal Airmen, we’ll keep you posted on all of them.

And that’s it for this week.  Thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!