Greeting Loyal Airmen, well the 2016 Fort Collins Comic Con has come and gone. Doubled up to a two day show this year, it was so much fun and Valerie and the Air Chief got to visit with old friends and make lots of new ones. Proceeds from this show go to the Poudre Valley Library District and at the end of the two days, the con had earned them $30,000.  Now that’s how a comic community works.

At left is Val and the Air Chief behind our table and in front of our banner. That, is you’ll recall, was a wonderful Christmas gift to the us several years ago. Then on Sunday afternoon, our beautiful granddaughter Cora and her beau, Calvin, came to the show and Val snapped the picture of the three of us. Calvin is a huge comic fan and he was in his glory at this show.

Sitting across the aisle from us was writer Bryan Richmond and sometime during the show he snapped this pix of a cos-player in a great Ant-Man costume. Whereas if you squint your eyes, you can see the Air Chief over the his fellow’s right shoulder. Then our good friend from Barnes & Noble, Nikki Jackson was there with tons of role playing games modules, books and toys. Nikki has done a great deal to get her store connected with the city’s comic community and those efforts have benefited everyone.

One of the most amazing surprises the Air Chief has ever experienced happened Sat. afternoon when a Facebook pal and fan, Kenneth Stock of Denver, showed up and presented me with a 9 1/2″ bronze statue of my character, Brother Bones the Undead Avenger. It weighs in a 7 lbs. Now Ken and the Air Chief had communicated a few times on Facebook and we were looking forward to meeting him at long last, but never in our wildest dreams did we expect for him to show up and give us this amazing statue…as a gift!!  When we say we have the best fans in the entire world, we are not joking.

Both Val and the Air Chief has so much fun talking with Ken then we learned he’d actually sculptured a second pulp hero.  As he’d seen the cover to our new comic series, GUNS OF THE BLACK BAT from Moonstone Comics, Ken so loved Michael Stribling’s cover to issue #1, he went and did a bronze of it as well. See above. The man is really a gifted artist and it was my distinct honor to autograph a copy of Brother Bones # 1 for him and issues #1 & #2 of the comic. Before leaving, Ken promised he would be doing more of these pulp inspired figures.  WOW.

Here’s another shot of the Air Chief and Val having fun behind our table of comics and pulps, while to the right is the very cool award given to us for participating in the show. To all involved in putting on this fun show, especially our good friend Todd Jones, we say a heartfelt thanks.  And hope to see you next year.

Meanwhile, as the Air Chief and Val were having fun at the con, Art Director Rob Davis was busy wrapping up the last four character sketches for the new Brother Bones movie. Here we have Cape Noire’s toughest cop, Lt. Dan Rains, and its dedicated crime reporter, Sally Paige.

And the last two, Brother Bones’ assistant and chauffeur, Blackjack Bobby Crandall and mob boss, Big Swede Jorgenson.  Rob did a total of 20 character sketches which will be used by the producers to aid in both casting and costuming. Stay tuned for more as the project progresses.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  As ever, thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you back here next week.

Ron – Over and Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, well this has been a busy week as we’ve been putting together boxes of our pulp books and comic books to have at our table at the second annual Fort Collins Comic Con which is this weekend, 26-7-28 Aug. At the Old Town Community Center.  The Air Chief will certainly have a table stacked high with goodies so we do hope to see you there.

Meanwhile we told you in last week’s Flight Log that Valerie and the Air Chief would be attending singer Josh Groban’s one night concert appearance at the Pepsi Center in downtown Denver.  Well, we attended, along with granddaughter Cora and her boyfriend Calvin and all of us had a great, great time.  Josh performed for well over two full hours, after a few opening acts got the show rolling.  We’ve been huge fans of his for years and it was a pure joy to be there and hear him live.  Truly a magical night none of us will ever forget. The pix above was snapped in the club suite we had.

Meanwhile the buzz on the Brother Bones movie continues to grow.  Jase Marshall, the amazing creator of half a dozen Brother Bones models recently received his Rob Davis autograph movie poster in the mail.  He framed it and then set two of his models to flank it for a really great picture.  Then we learned Jase, using clips found on the internet made his own fan movie trailer, again using some of his model figures.  ((https://youtu.be/ohooAuMEHGo)  Which you can see at the link just posted. We, along with producer Erik Franklin, really liked what Jase came up with. Again, the buzz just gets strong and strong.  And as ever we will keep all our Loyal Airmen posted.

Meanwhile Rob Davis continues to knock out these great character sketches for the film. Above we have the Werewolf, with whom Brother Bones must battle and the beautiful Sheila Henderson who is partly responsible for his creation. All explained in the film’s storyline. Everything is coming along quite nicely.

And that’s it for this week, Loyal Airmen, a short report as we have to get things packed away and ready for the con this weekend. We truly hope to see many of our local comic pals there. As ever, thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen.  Ever since the Air Chief and Art Director Rob Davis began Airship 27 Productions eleven years ago, we’ve done our best to produce new pulp novels and titles in as timely a fashion as we could. On average we do between 18 and 20 new books a year.  Well, as of this week, we’ve broken a new record here at Airship 27 by producing and releasing 3 books in 3 weeks.  Two weeks ago we released Fred Adams’ “HITWOLF 2 The Pack.”  Then last week we released “Rick Lai’s MAJOR SABBATH.” And now comes as yet another new book.

“Dead Man’s Melody” is the start of a brand new mystery series by Fred Adams Jr. As you can see, he is one prolific writer.  It takes place in the world of rock & roll and when a famous 70s rock star is found murdered in his studio, musician Sam Dunne gets involved because the police see him as their top suspect. This is a gripping tale and features interior art by Richard Jun, a new artist to Airship 27 and a wonderfully designed cover by Rob Davis.  Oh, and the model who posed for that gruesome, blood stained hand was….Ye Old Air Chief.  Yup.  Anyways, we hope you’ll give “Dead Man’s Melody” a try, we don’t think you’ll be disappointed.  As ever available at Amazon in both paperback and on Kindle.

While pre-production continues to roll along for the Brother Bones movie and here are two more of Rob Davis’ excellent character sketches.  Above we have Judy, the teenage prostitute integral to the creation of Brother Bones and then Cape Noire’s own mad scientist, Prof. Bugosi.

Next up is Prof. Bugosi’s manservant, the brute Waldo and Mob Boss Topper Wyld’s beautiful young daughter, Alexis Wyld who will one day inherit his criminal empire. Will be interesting to see who these sketches match up with the live actors chosen to play the parts.

And finally, tonight the Valerie and the Air Chief are looking forward to a special night in Denver.  We’ve gotten tickets to go see singer Josh Groban, one of our favorites, performing at the Pepsi Center.  One of our nephews is an executive with Pepsi and knowing of our fondness for this amazing singer, was able to get us these great tickets.  Should be lots of fun.

And there you have it, Loyal Airmen, till next weekend, thanks as ever for stopping by and enjoy these fleeting last days of summer.

Ron – Over and Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, things are really heating about around the old Hangar 27 with our releasing our second book in two weeks.  This one is a western based on the Spaghetti westerns of the late actor Lee Van Cleef.

A few years ago our good friend Rick Lai approached us at the Windy City Pulp and Paper convention to discuss the possibilities of doing an anthology series based on the bounty hunter character played by Van Cleef in several of these Italian westerns. In a few he was called Sabatta, where else something else in others. Ergo, the Air Chief suggested to Rick that he come up with a new original name and we’d go from there.  Once Major Sabbath had been agreed upon, Rick did up a bible for the series and we put it out to our stable of writers.  Happily, two of the best signed on to write stories featuring this character; Erik Franklin and Frank Schildiner.  Then Rick turned in bible into an extra long essay on Van Cleef’s career in these movies and we added that to the package.  Today it was released at Amazon in paperback and will soon be available in Kindle.  Michael Dean Jackson provided the interior illustrations and the amazing Pat Carbajal did that terrific cover above.  We hope you’ll check it out.

One of the things the Air Chief has always appreciated about comic art is how different each artist approached interpreting a script.  Several years ago, we gave artist Shannon Hall a copy of our script “A Cold Demise” to illustrate. At the time it was our latest Captain Jain Marlee sci-fi short.  Shannon went right to town and delivered the first page in just a few weeks. Then, sadly, unexpected issues arose which demanded all his time and energies and he had to leave the project. About a year later, we connected with artist Luis Rivera on Facebook and when he asked about doing something with us, we offered him “The Cold Demise” script.  He finished all 8 pages within a month’s time.  And it was fantastic.  It has since been printed in several black and white comic anthologies and even appeared in full color in another.  The other day, Shannon dropped us a line reminding me of this page he’d done and we immediately pulled it up along aside that done by Luis.  (See above, Shannon to the left, Luis to the right.) Both worked from the exact same script but interpreted the scenes in totally different ways.  Truly fascinating and both work beautifully, in our opinion, conveying the opening of the story with fun and drama. Honestly, we love them both equally and thought it would fun to share them with you Loyal Airmen.  Hopefully in the not too distant future, the Air Chief hopes to do another project with Shannon, one that will reach completion and meanwhile, Luis is now in New Jersey attending the prestigious Joe Kubert School of Graphic Art.  We predict a truly bright future for this super talented comic book artist.

Meanwhile Airship 27 Production’s own Art Director, Rob Davis, continues to do double duty as the Art Designer for the Brother Bones movie by drawing up characters sketches.  His two most recent include Cape Noire’s gangland boss, Topper Wyld, and his right hand man, killer Harry Beest. These sketches help the producers both with the casting of actors for each roles plus also aid the costume people in how these people dressed back in the 1930s.  Rob is doing a fantastic job with these.

Valerie and the Air Chief finally got around to seeing the latest DC flick, “Suicide Squad” the other day.  Note, the Air Chief doesn’t see every single comic book movie, allow us some taste and discrimination.  We avoided the last “Fantastic Four,” “Deadpool” and “Superman vs Batman.”  Decisions that haven’t cost us a single sleepless night.  Whereas “Suicide Squad” was an old comic title we once collected and hearing the multitude of mixed reviews, we decided this one we’d check out for ourselves.  Particularly since the movie featured one of our all time favorite female comic book characters…KATANA.  Sure, we know all the hype as been on Harley Quinn and honestly, she is the star of this ensemble actioner, even eclipsing Will Smith.  But that’s neither here nor there.  For, as we said earlier, we’ve always been a huge fan of the Oriental Dynamo created by our pal, writer Mike Barr.  Whenever she showed up on any of the Batman animated series, we were there applauding loudly.  Now, knowing she was going “live” in a big-budget summer movie. There was no way we were missing that debut.  And quite frankly, she totally rocks!!!  The rest of the movie could have laid a dozen goose eggs and been horrible (which is isn’t) and we’d still be happy.  That was our Katana on the silver screen and the Air Chief has all fingers crossed we’ll be seeing lots more of her in future installments.  Oh, yeah.

And there you have our Flight Log for this week, Loyal Airmen.  As ever thanks for stopping by and we’ll b e back next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, sure looks like 2016 is whipping past us at hyper-speed these days. It’s already Aug and we’re half way through the year with BOTH the Windy City Pulp & Paper Con and now Pulp Fest behind us.  Wow, Mom always told us the older we got, the faster time sped up.  She wasn’t kidding.  Ha. Anyway we thought we’d get this week’s Flight Log rolling with a final pix from Pulp Fest 2016 taking from the second floor landing by our pal William Lampkin which clearly shows our Airship 27 Productions tables.  That’s the Air Chief at the left chatting with pal Mark Haelgua and of course Art Director Rob Davis to the right talking with another attendee.  Truly a great show this year and thanks William, for the great pix.

Last year Airship 27 Productions released HITWOLF by Fred Adams, Jr, the story of a Vietnam veteran turned into a werewolf by the New Jersey mob to be their assassin. In the end, he manages to escape them and goes on the run. Well the hunt now continues in HITWOLF 2 The Pack which we just released. Once again Clayton Hinkle provides the wonderful interior illustrations and this time Zachary Brunner turns in that fantastic cover above.  The Air Chief personally loves this series and we hope you’ll give a try. Available as ever from Amazon.com –

As many of you will recall, last month the Air Chief had the fun of being a guest at the local Barnes & Noble bookstore to talk about American Pulps. Well, our good pal Rio Herrera was kind enough to tape the event and you can see it on You Tube at the link below.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdTI6jDJxyo)  Hope you enjoy it.

And as for our latest update on the Brother Bones movie, Art Director Rob Davis is still doing up character sketches for the producers. Here is his take on Madame Sadie Levine who runs the bordello in the opening scenes of the film. Again, these will help with the casting of actors to play various roles.

Finally we are going to leave you with a special art peek at a forthcoming book. In the past two years, Airship 27 Productions has had the privilege of publishing half a dozen novels and a few short stories by one of the finest writers the Air Chief has ever had honor of meeting, Fred Adams Jr.  During the time our association began, Fred let it be known that the first novel he ever wrote, DEAD MAN’S MELODY, a fantastic murder mystery that takes place in the world of music and rock roll, had never been published.  We quickly convinced him to submit and now, after finding the right illustrator, are about to go into final production.  That illustrator is Richard Jun and above is one of the nine pieces he did for Fred’s novel.  We are extremely excited about DEAD MAN’S MELODY.  More as things develop.

As ever, thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you back here next week.

Ron Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, here we are home after another glorious weekend in Columbus, Ohio for Pulp Fest.  Ye Old Air Chief and Airship 27 Art Director Rob Davis had a blast as ever meeting so many of you great Loyal Airmen.  We hooked up with many old friends and happily made tons of new ones.  A really nice surprise was the baseball caps the Con people had made up as promotion for all the vendors. The Air Chief is proud to say we wore our the second it was handed us.

As many of you already know, writer/radio DJ, Mark Justice of Kentucky passed way in Feb. of this year.  We’ve been working with his wife, Norma Kay, to republish Mark’s truly amazing weird western series, “The Dead Sheriff.”  When Norma heard Rob and the Air Chief were going to be in Columbus, she recruited her friend Kathy and they drove up specifically to meet us…and of course to see the show.  Norma confessed that in all their wonderful years together, she never went to any convention with Mark, though he was forever asking her to.  So she saw attending as another way to honor Mark’s memory.  Norma Kay is a darling lady and the Air Chief and Rob were simply delighted to meet and spend some time with here.  As for you Loyal Airmen, keep an eye out for “Mark Justice’s The Dead Sheriff,” which we hope to have out in a few short months.

As ever, one of our personal highlights of Pulp Fest is the New Pulp Panel held on Saturday afternoons which the Air Chief has been proud to moderate since the very first show.  This year, as ever, we had a great panel of New Pulp authors and as seen in the pix above, that’s Yours Truly at far right guiding the fun, then we have Jeff Venture Fournier, Barbara Doran (the very first woman to be on our panel) well known editor and writer (and good buddy) Win Scott Eckert and lastly Andy Fix. The gentlemen in the front row left in the yellow shirt is another long time friend, Dr. Art Sippo, the host of the highly popular New Pulp Panel, Art’s Review.  Once again we had a fantastic hour talking writing and editing New Pulp Fiction.  We hope some day you can make the coin and join us.

Above is a long photo of con floor with Airship 27 Production’s black background banner visible in the lower land hand corner of the pix.

Finally, ever year the con gives out the Munsey Award to that person who has done exemplary work in promoting pulp fandom.  This year’s award went to our friend Laurie Powers, whose grandfather was one of the great pulp writers.  Keeping his memory and fiction alive through the books she has published over the years has added much to the health and continued growth of our cherished hobby. Congratulations Laurie, this was well deserved.

As we mentioned in a previous Log Entry, the promotional poster for the Brother Bones The Undead Movie (now in production) was done prior to our heading for Columbus, where sold quite a few.  We have a limited number left and if any of you Loyal Airmen would love to have this on your office walls, you can go to the link below to order one from artist Rob Davis.  They are $15 each, which covers cost of the poster and shipping and handling.  Note, if you’d like Rob’s autograph, be sure to ask him to sign it for you.

(http://robmdavis.com/Airship27Hangar/index.airshipHangar.html#brobonesposter)

A few weeks ago we, in conjunction with Radio Archives released our ALAN QUATERMAIN – The New Adventures as an audio book read by voice actor Jem Matzan. Well, Jem is done up a You Tube promotion for that audiobook and you can listen to it here.   (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKMI2rIl3UU&feature=youtu.be)  Enjoy while we get volume two into production.

Finally, with all fingers crossed, the Air Chief will have finished penning his fifth Captain Hazzard adventure novel, “Custer’s Ghost.”  We’ve crested the 60,000 novel goal and are now wrapping up an action packed finale stay tuned, Loyal Airmen and once again, thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, as you are reading these words, the Air Chief and Art Director Rob Davis are in Columbus, Ohio about to kick off this year’s wonderful Pulp Fest convention. We’ve been coming to this show ever since it started and always have a great time there.  This is year is going to be special as we are going to have 15 copies of our limited collector’s edition of our new novel, “Holmes & Houdini” as written by I.A. Watson.  The original plan for this book, back when it first went into operation was to have DC graphic artist Chad Hardin do the cover for us, with Rob doing the interior illustration. Well circumstances beyond our control made it impossible for Chad to get his cover done in time for the con and so Rob hit upon the idea of doing a special cover (that he would do) and printing up a limited number of copies to specifically have for Pulp Fest.

And here is that Rob Davis cover.  We had 15 copies printed up.  Once we’ve sold these, we will not be printed any others.  So those people fortunate enough to snag one of these at the show ill have a true collector’s item as promised. Rob will personally sign and number each  (ala #1 of 15 etc.etc.).  Later down the road, when Chad does turn in his official cover, we will release the book.  If you’d like to actually hear the story behind this special event, take a listen to our recent Episode # 17 of our Airship 27 Podcast found here on You Tube…(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNXEDTJz5iA)

For a few years now our Airship 27 pulp readers have been asking us to give them a real mystery crime anthology.  Well, we are thrilled and delighted to announce the release of “Pup Confidential,” vol one – a bonafide pulp mystery anthology.  This first volume contains a lengthy novella by Tim Bruckner called “Scared Pretty” and deals with a serial killer in 1930s Hollywood. This is followed by “The Missing Beauty” a modern day thriller in which a British account goes to Bangkok on an assignment and is soon caught up in kidnapping and murder. Both are great reads and the art, to include interiors and cover are all by the amazing Rob Moran. We hope you’ll try out it. As ever it’s now available in hard copy from Amazon and with a few days will be on Kindle. Oh yeah, we’re excited about this one.

Remember that new Black Bat comic we told you about at the start of the year, which Ye Old Air Chief penned for Moonstone Comics.  Well, it was due out in April but an unexpected snafu at the printers caused it to be delayed.  This week it finally came out and is should be available at your local comic shops soon.  It’s called “Guns of the Black Bat” and is the first of a three issue mini-series.  Volume one has the Black Bat recruiting Airboy, the Moon Man and the Golden Amazon to help him fight Nazis saboteurs.  We hope you’ll check it out.

And since writing the previous section above, the post office delivered our copies.  Be aware, there are two covers, and at the bottom of each the credit listing should be Ron Fortier – Erick Esquivel – Paul Delacroix.  Again, we hope all you Loyal Airmen will see these in your comic shops next week.

And that wraps up this week’s Flight Log.  Time to finish packing the Airship 27 for our flight to Columbus.  See you there.

Ron (Over & Out!)

Greetings Loyal Airmen, we start this week’s Flight Log by welcoming our new pulp fan to the fold, Mr. Leland Fix, the new bundle of joy recently born to Andy & Connie Fix.  Andy is one of our regular writers at Airship 27 and that’s him above reading to his new son…a terrific pirate pulp adventure by our own Nancy Hansen. Anyway, congratulations Connie & Andy and again, welcome to the world, Leland, we’re so happy you could join us.

We are also thrilled to let you know the second Brother Bones book, the full length novel Roman Leary is now out from Radio Archives as read by the terrific Scott Bennett.  Scott also read the first volume, Brother Bones the Undead Avenger much to our utter most delight.  We can’t wait to sit down and give this a listen.  We hope you will too.  The book can be downloaded from Audible at the link below  (

(http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/Ron-Fortiers-Brother-Bones-Six-Days-of-the-Dragon-Audiobook/B01I5HFDFQ/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1468268859&sr=1-1)

While on the subject of the Undead Avenger, Rob Davis has begun doing character sketches for the movie team.  He’s doing one for each of the players in the movie’s storyline.  This week he did one of gangster killer Tommy Bonello (above) before he becomes Brother Bones.  You’ll note Tommy wore the tattoo of a red skull on his right hand.  Upon becoming Bones, it turned into a white skull.  These sketches will benefit the producers in what kind of costuming to use and the body types for the actors to play these roles.  Will add more as time goes by.

And finally, we thought it would be neat to have the Brother Bones movie poster on a Tee-Shirt to show off at next week’s Pulp Fest.  And here it is.  We think it came out looking great.  And that wraps up this week’s Flight Log Loyal Airmen, as ever, thanks for stopping in.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, we hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend.  We just got in some really fantastic news.

Several months ago we released our latest volume of SHERLOCK HOLMES – CONSULTING DETECTIVE.  See cover above.  No sooner had we announced the book’s availability on Amazon, we learned they were not offering a Kindle version. We wrote to them, they sent back vague, inexplicable reasons why they couldn’t do a Kindle version and thus began a real frustrating run-around with these people. We’d pretty much given up making them understanding what they were doing was illogical.  All previous seven volumes of this series are on Kindle, this one was just like the others, containing only brand new stories.  But still no Kindle version.  Then writer I.A. Watson took it upon himself to take over the correspondence with the Amazon bunch and somehow, miraculously, he got through to them and as of today, Volume 8 is available on Kindle at this link.

(https://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Consulting-Detective-8-ebook/dp/B01E1U3C90?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0#navbar)

To our Loyal Kindle fans, we apologize this took so damn long and are thrilled to finally have it out there for you.  Book also includes stories by Aaron Smith and Ray Lavato. It really is a winner…and thank you, Ian!

What with this year’s PulpFest coming up in a few more weeks, Airship 27 Productions has teamed up with Radio Archives and Pro Se Press to offer a free audio book download to all attendees of the convention.  Here’s the official press release.

Free Stuff At PulpFest – Radio Archives, the leading producer of old-time radio collections and pulp audiobooks, will be offering a free audiobook to each and every attendee of PulpFest 2016. To celebrate the launch of the new Airship 27 and Pro Se Productions lines of audiobooks, Radio Archives will be offering a free voucher — valued at $15 to $20 — through our registration packets. You’ll be able to choose any Airship 27 or Pro Se audiobook you like, with no restrictions. PulpFest is extremely grateful to Radio Archives, Airship 27 Productions, and Pro Se Productions for this very generous offer.

How’s that a cool offer…and incentive.  If you live anywhere near the Columbus, Ohio area, mark your calendars – 22nd to 24th of July and come to one of the best pulp conventions ever.  We’d love to see you there.

And Airship 27 Productions this past week released its 130th title, a new novel, “The Persona” by writer Michael Housel.  It’s the debut of a new mystic pulp hero and tons of fun.  Features interior illustrations by artist Art Cooper with a cover painting by Shannon Hall. Book is available now in paperback at Amazon.com and will soon be on Kindle and down the road, as an audiobook.  As ever, thanks for your support.

And finally, our appearance at the local Barnes & Noble bookstore here in Fort Collins went extremely well last evening. We had a nice turn out and Air Chief got to spend thirty minutes talking on the history American pulps and then signed a few books and graphic novels.  Valerie, our # 1 fan, snapped the pix above.  We thank all our friends who stopped by to join us and especially the good people at Barnes & Noble.  Note, Loyal Airmen, on pal actually video-taped my little talk and it will eventually pop up on You-Tube.  When it does, we’ll slap the link to it right here.

And that’s it for another week, Loyal Airmen, as ever thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, and a Happy 4th of July to all of you.  We kick off this week’s Flight Log with the truly awesome image above.  As some of you may recall, the Air Chief will be making two appearances at the local Barnes & Noble bookstore here in Fort Collins in the coming weeks.  First we’ll be doing an Author’s signing and talking about the history of American pulps.  The following week, on a Sat. afternoon, the Air Chief and his friend, comics writer Todd Jones, will be putting a fun childrens workshop on how comics are made.  Although store police forbids us from selling our comics at this even, the young woman planning it all suggested we do up a Jiggy flier which she would in turn get printed up and we’d could hand those out at this fun workshop. We thought it a cool idea and immediately contacted artist Rob Davis who, within minutes, whipped up the above image.  Upon first viewing it looked very busy…then we realized Rob had actually put together every single Redbud issue of our Mr. Jigsaw series, to include the Mr. Jigsaw How to Make A Comic Special.  Wow. We absolutely love this and had to share it with all our Loyal Airmen.

Continued the comic book news, we’re thrilled to announce that Mr. Jigsaw Man of a Thousand Parts # 14 is now available for sale at IndyPlanet.com  (http://www.indyplanet.us/product/137094/) This is a truly special issue as it was both drawn AND written by artist Gary Kato….without any help from the Air Chief. The truth is, Loyal Airmen, Gary had been waiting a long-long time for us to send him a new script, but our work on the Airship 27 titles kept us so busy, we just couldn’t get it done.  So Gary squared his shoulders, remembered a phone conversation we’d had about some ideas for future issues and ran with it.  What he ended up with is one of the best Mr. Jigsaw tales ever done. We are truly excited about this issue. We hope you’ll check it out.

And a last comic item of much fun.  Over the years many Loyal Airmen have inquires as to how the Air Chief and his partner Rob Davis met and ultimately became co-creators on both comics and pulp books.  Well the story does go back to the late 80s and early 90s when both the Air Chief, as a writer, and Rob, as an artist, were breaking into the pro ranks.  We became aware of Rob’s work through some of the comics he was drawing and we wrote him telling him how much we enjoyed his work. He kindly replied and thus began our correspondence friendship.  Then when the comic biz imploded and both of were pretty much kicked out of jobs, we lost touch with each other.  Almost twenty years later the Air Chief was surfing the internet one night when he came across a webstrip called “The Spirit of 66” by one Rob Davis. Of course we logged immediately and sure enough it was our old pal producing this weekly colored web-strip about a young man traveling America’s fabled Route 66 looking for adventure. It was of course an homage to that old 60s TV series starring George Maharis and Marty Milner.  Anyway, the Air Chief immediately wrote Rob via this webpage and soon we were once again writing each other and catching.  All of which eventually led to Rob drawing my graphic novel script “Daughter of Dracula” and then joining me in starting up Airship 27 Productions and then his own Redbud Studio.  All because of that fortuitous reconnect on-line.  Well, Loyal Airmen, after all these years, Rob’s decided to collect those strips into a comic book and will soon be releasing via Redbud.  Above is his cover.  Sincerely, we can’t wait to get a copy. That one strip was instrumental in so many amazing, wonderful things. We hope you’ll be as thrilled by it as we are.

Moving on to pulp stuff, if all goes well, we will be releasing our latest Airship 27 Pulp novel this weekend. It’s called “The Persona” by writer Michael Housel and the interior art is by Art Cooper.  Above is a sneak-peek at one of his amazing pieces.

And a final reminder to all our Fort Collins friends, we will be at the Barnes & Noble next Wed evening, July 6th at 7 p.m.  Hope to see many of your there. And that’s it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  As ever, thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!