Greetings Loyal Airmen, thus far it has been a very exciting week here at Hangar 28 HQ and we’ll get right into that. But first we need to shout out our latest title.

Last week we released our fourth book in the Barry Baskerville childrens’ book series.  BARRY BASKERVILLE’S BLUE BICYCLE is written by series creator Richard Kellogg with art by our pal, Gary Kato, who mentioned meeting a few weeks ago on our great trip to Hawaii.  Anyways, in this installment, Barry, the boy wanting to grow up and be Sherlock Holmes, sets out to scour his neighborhood on his brand new bicycle.  As ever the story is fresh, fun and great for children of all ages.  Available now at Amazon in both paperback and on Kindle.

For several years now, the Air Chief has been predicting that the next level for the New Pulp Movement to attain is recognition from Hollywood.  We’ve always believe the stories being told in New Pulp books today are some of the most original and exciting on the market. Thus it seems only logical to us that sooner or later the film community would find that out.  As most of you Loyal Airmen already know, the Air Chief’s own Brother Bones stories are now being adapted into a feature length movie by Franklin – Husser Entertainment LLC.  Well just a few days ago, the Air Chief received an inquiry from a representative of a highly respected Hollywood production firm interested in the rights to one of the titles we published at the start of the year.  We immediately put these people in touch with the creator(s) of that particular book and are now keeping our fingers crossed something actually does come of this. The odds are always tremendously against most of these queries ever developing into full blown productions. Still, it is amazing to realize our books are actually getting into the hands of these people and that in itself says a lot. As for this particular title, we will be keeping everything confidential as we don’t want to go and jinx anything.  If something concrete does come from all this, you have our word, you Loyal Airmen will be the first to know.  In the meanwhile, let’s keep those fingers crossed.

On other fronts, the topic of heroes, both real and fictional, grabs our attention now. Earlier this week, all of Red Sox Nation, which the Air Chief is a proud member, bid a fond farewell to # 34, David Ortiz.  Better known as Big Papi, Ortiz was arguably the greatest designated hitter to play the game of baseball and in his eleven years with the Red Sox help carry them to three world series. He was a a tremendous player as well as a decent, humble, soul who reflected all that is good about the game.  We will miss him sorely, though the Air Chief predicts, Ortiz will make the Hall of Fame in his first ballot which comes in five years.  Mark our words.  And Big Papi, thanks for so many awesome memories from Fenway.

As for fictional heroes, well the Air Chief grew up in the 1950s a huge fan of Superman on television as played by George Reeves.  He was truly the embodiment of “Truth, Justice and the American Way.”  Later, when Richard Donner brought the character to the big screen, it was Christopher Reeves who donned the red cape and once again gave us the comic book hero bringing him to life as he should always be portrayed; as the Big Blue Boy Scout.  Several others have taken the role since then and done well with it, ala Dean Cain on TV and Brandon Routh in a badly panned rebooth of the old film series.  Both were still true to the character the Air Chief loved.  Then along came Zach Snyder and his “Man of Steel” and the recent “Superman VS Batman.”  And just like that, the hero we’d grown up admiring and wanting to emulate was gone, replaced by a pouty, egotistical, darker version which bears absolutely no resemblance to the comic character created by Jerry Seigel and Joe Schuster all those ages ago.  To the point that many of us began to believe, with Snyder’s control at Warner Brothers, we would never again see “our” Superman…the real one.

Whereas a few nights ago, WB aired the first episode of the highly popular SUPERGIRS series, which last year appeared on CBS and then jumped over to the WB channel.  And in this very first show, a new Superman takes center stage in the form of actor Taylor Hoechins….and simply blew us away.  There he was, the same bumbling, fun, smiling happy Clark Kent we all recognized immediately. Then when he becomes the Man of Steel, he’s determined, strong and a true hero of the people. In one of his earliest scenes, he greets people reaching out to shake their hands and win them over with his charming smile.  The Air Chief thought he was witnessing the impossible and we give heartfelt thanks to the producers and writers of this series, who obviously understand who Superman is the cultural history of America and how to do him properly.  All fingers crossed, they stay the course.  Welcome back, Superman, we’ve missed you so much.

And finally, on the Brother Bones movie front, we’ve something cool to share with all your Loyal Airman.  Screenwriter and co-producer, Erik Franklin turned in his first storyboard rough depicting one of the crucial scenes in the movie. Most such storyboards are done only in black and white, but Erik felt the colors would help dramatize what he was hoping to show.  People who have read the origin story should have no problems recognizing the scene.  We’ll continue to share such pieces as they are done.

And that’s a wrap for this week, Loyal Airmen. As ever thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Welcome Loyal Airmen, it’s been two weeks since we returned from our fabulous vacation on the islands of Hawaii.  And as promised last week, we’ve got lots of great photos to share with you.  Our first three days were spent in Honolulu and the pix above is the view from our hotel room.

There were lots of wonderful places to tour in this grand South Pacific metropolis, but the most memorable was the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, where events there led to the U.S. entry into World War II. Quite a spiritual moment when you step onto the memorial itself realizing the remains of that great battleship and its lots crew are there, under the water below your feet.

If you’ve ever watched the TV police show, HAWAII 5-O then you are familiar with the palace picture above and the stature of the King.  Truly impressive to see for real.

Most restaurants are open enclosures and even while enjoying the local nightlife of the city, one is still subject to the warm sea breezes from all around.

Of course, one of the main reasons for including Honolulu on our itinerary was to afford the Air Chief the opportunity to meet his comics co-creator and friend of 47 years, artist Gary Kato.  Honestly, meeting Gary was like meeting a long lost relative. We’ve been pals for so long, no surprise we all relished the meeting.

Here’s a shot of me, Gary and our brother-in-law, Gus, as Gary was demonstrating the “Hang Loose” gesture to us. We saw it used quite often while on our trip.  With only a few days on Oahu, it was time to pack up and head for Maui where we would spend the next five days.

Less developed than Oahu, Maui still retains its island feel, a paradise buried in a sea of floral green everywhere one looked.

The western shore is fairly developed with some truly beautiful hotels. This was the view of the pool at ours. It was over an acre in size. In distant background you can see the blue line of the Pacific.

The outer landscaping of the resorts is all themes around the natural beauty of the island.

A closer shot of the pool.  We did venture into the ocean, but found the shoreline extremely rocky and the surf powerful. Only for the brave of heart.

Of course that didn’t stop us from walking the surf and enjoying beach to the max. Here we are hamming up, while Val’s shadow snaps the pix.

All the pools around the hotel were stocked with these beautifully colored coy fish.

Valerie before a smaller statue of King Kamehameha.

Here we are one sunset seated on the outside porch of our room. View from there was spectacular, looking out over the Pacific.

Here’s one such sunset…truly inspiring.

And here’s a typical morning on the beach at Maui.

Our traveling companions, Valerie’s sister Barbara and husband Gus. We always have such a great time together.

Of course you can’t visit the island without going to a traditional luau, which we did on our second there.  Some of those dances are over a hundred years old.

One of the Air Chief’s favorite pictures, as we shared the garden beauty of this magical place.

The flowers were so beautiful and everywhere.  Val loved them all.

On the third day, we boarded a shuttle bus for an 8 hour excursion all around the island of Maui, called “The Road to Hana,” a plantation located at the very top of the island.

Sadly, as we learned, all the sugar and pineapple plantations are gone from the islands now, being too expensive to compete with South American growers. Whereas the island’s economy now depends primarily on tourism. Here’s another spectacular shot from high up the small narrow jungle road.

Where bridges were concerned, the roads narrowed to one lane and if there was traffic coming from the opposite side, one vehicle would have to pull over and let it pass before moving on. Many bridges crossed gorgeous waterfalls.

There is an hypnotic beauty of this jungle paradise that captivates the soul. It is pristine and uncluttered, save for Mother Nature’s opulent colors.

It was not difficult to imagine this landscape ala the Garden of Eden.

With so many plants and trees having been brought to the islands from far Eastern countries, the flora is diverse and a botanist would be in seventh heaven exploring it all.

Happiness on the islands is contagious. But as all good things, our trip came to an end all too soon.

Our last night together, before flying home the next day.  As you can tell from this pix, all of us were tired but happy beyond words, left with such wonderful memories we will keep forever.  Thanks for stopping by and enjoying them with us.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we were fully expecting to spend this week’s Flight Log relating some of our fun experiences while on vacation in beautiful Hawaii these past few weeks but alas, yesterday we learned of the passing of Robert Weinberg, a man very much responsible for many of the things the Air Chief has done the past 47 years. So if you’ll bear with us, we’ll save the vacation tales for next week.

BOB WEINBERG (4 Sept 1946 – 25 Sept 2016)

It was 47 years ago when the Air Chief came home from Vietnam and back to civilian life. It didn’t take us long to get back to comic book collecting and one of the first things we did was get a subscription to the Comic Buyer’s Guide, a weekly newspaper that covered all facets of comicdom, to include fan made magazines. Among those classified ads, we found one offering reprinted pulp magazines in small facsimile editions for only $5 each. Not at all aware of the pulps at that time, we were intrigued and began ordering these little books from one Bob Weinberg. Wow, but they totally opened our eyes to amazing world of the classic old pulps. Through Bob’s books we found the Moon Man, Doctor Satan, Captain Hazzard and so many others. They totally fired up our imagination and eventually would lead us not only to a career in comic writing, but the creation of Airship 27 Productions which then help with the establishing of the New Pulp Movement.

Over time we learned Bob was no only a pulp fan/historian but also a terrific writer and editor with a well deserved reputation of being one of the best. It would take almost 40 years but we did eventually meet Bob at the Windy City Pulp & Paper Con and personally thanked him for helping inspires us all those years earlier. In ill heath for quite some time, Bob left us shortly after turning 70, where he was given a wonderful party surrounded by family and close friends. His loss leaves a huge hole in our community and the Air Chief will be forever in his debt. Rest well, old friend, and thanks.

The latest from Airship 27 Productions is a special edition book starring Ravenwood – The Stepson of Mystery in which we reprint 4 of his adventures.  Three by Aaron Smith, Jonathan Fisher and Gene Moyers first appeared in Volume Two of his series and the fourth was by Ye Old Air Chief that was featured in Occult Detectives Vol One.  Rob Davis provided the nifty cover above. As ever it is available at Amazon in paperback and on Kindle. As to why do this book at all, the truth is it became impossible for us to keep Ravenwood Stepson of Mystery Vol Two in our catalog any longer, for reasons way to complicated to get into here. So this was our alternative to assure these great stories stayed in print.

Meanwhile the good folks at Radio Archives have continuing adapting our Airship 27 titles into audio books and here are four of their more current releases.

From occult detectives to our Brother Bones series, Sinbad to monsters, these great listening books are all available from (www.Audible.com)  If you enjoy audiobooks we hope you’ll give them a try. The Radio Archives narrators are among the best in the business.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen. Thanks ever for stopping and come back next week to see lots of our pictures from beautiful Hawaii.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal airmen.  As you read today’s Flight Log, Valerie and the Air Chief are still on vacation.  So, to thank you for stopping by, as promised, we thought we’d show off some artwork for up and coming projects.  Again, do keep in mind, these could be weeks or even months away from completion, but we thought you’d enjoy seeing these gorgeous pieces.

Our second Allan Quatermain anthology is coming along nicely and super artist Graham Hill turned in the above cover that blew us away.  Meanwhile, interior artist Clayton Hinkle is hard at work on his 12 black and white pieces that will grace this issue.

Another title in the works is our second DOMINO LADY anthology.  Like the first this one will have gorgeous interior illustrations by James Lyle.  Above is one such illo.

Another anthology in the works is MYSTERY MEN (& Women) Vol. 4 No cover has been set for this one yet, but our own Rob Davis is providing the glorious interior pieces. This volume will feature stories by B.C. Bell, Joel Jenkins, Craig Russette and Thomas Deja.

Last year we released a western called GUN GLORY by writer R.A. Jones. It featured a civil war vet named Jason Mankiller.  Now R.A. has written a sequel called COMANCHE BLOOD and that’s the cover above, as painted by the amazing Adam Shaw.  Artist Chris Kohler is now busy at work on the interiors.

Finally, the special HOLMES & HOUDINI novel written by I.A. Watson is ready to be published as soon as we get in Chad Hardin’s cover.  As you might recall, we printed up 15 copies of this volume and sold them as special Collector’s Editions at this year’s PulpFest.  Above is one of Rob Davis’ brilliant illustrations. Believe me, Loyal Airmen, we are truly anxious to get in Chad’s cover and get this book out. It is a great story.

And there you have, Loyal Airmen. Just a few of the exciting new projects coming your way from Airship 27 Productions.  As ever thanks for stopping by and next week, back in the office, Ye Old Air Chief should be.

Ron – Over and Out!

Greetings Loyal, Airmen, as you are reading this Flight Log, the Air Chief and Valerie are somewhere on the beach at Honolulu enjoying our first real vacation in a long, long time. We’ll be gone for two weeks and plan on enjoying every single minute of it, ergo, we’ve time this Flight Log to post via a date program.

One of the real joys of this trip will be our getting to meet our life-long friend and creative partner, artist Gary Kato.  The Air Chief came out of Vietnam the summer of 1968. In 1969, we discovered the art of Gary Kato in a fanzine and wrote to him in care of that magazine. Gary replied and thus began a friendship that is now 47 years old. Together we created Mr. Jigsaw, Man of a Thousand Parts and broke into the world of professional comics together. Throughout our long careers, we’ve remained friends and done quite a few comic books together.  We’ve exchanged hundreds of letters and now communicate by e-mail, we’ve had hours and hours of phone conversations….but we have never actually met face to face. By the time you are reading this, that will have finally happened.  To the Air Chief it will be like being reunited with a soul brother, Gary means that much to us. And no worries, Val is bringing along her camera and plans on taking lots and lots of pictures.

On other exciting matters, we’ve been fans of the Max Allan Collins crime series that features a professional assassin known only as Quarry.  We’ve been reading them for a long time and each is great, we can’t recommend them enough.  Well, good old Cinemax has just launched a new weekly drama series based on those books and the premier episode aired last week.  Above is a photo of Max and the series star, Martin-Green. This is a gritty tale of a Vietnam vet who returns home disillusioned with life and desperate to find his place in this world.  The era is the 70s and the show captures it perfectly, with intelligent scripting taken directly from Max’ books, taut directing and very capable action.  You might want to check it out.

And that’s a wrap.  Note, as we’ll be out of the office next week, we are going to post a very special Flight Log made up of a few illustration sneak peeks on our up and coming titles.  A little treat for all you Loyal Airmen who make it a point to stop by every week. Our way of saying thanks.  And that’s all from here till after the 26th.

Aloha!

Ron Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, as you will recall, two weeks ago the Air Chief was a guest at the second annual Fort Collins Comic Con. While there, we did a long interview  with Neil Greenway for Bleedin’ Cool, in it I talk about my comic career, Mr. Jigsaw, Airship 27 Productions, the New Pulp Movement, the Black Bat series and of course the Brother Bones movie.  Oh yeah.  Here’s the link to it below.

(http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/09/04/how-the-comic-brother-bones-is-becoming-a-movie-talking-to-ron-fortier/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook)

Meanwhile Producer/Director Erik Franklin and his partner, Daniel Husser, have been scouting the great Seattle area for possible location sites to film the Brother Bones movie and these are some of the places that may end up in the finished film. As Erik explained in, special PC digital magic will remove all modern signs, cars, etc. to leave the architecture untouched and provide the look of the 1930s in which the story takes place.

In fact, one particular house, which Erik drives by daily, is one he wants to eventually use as the setting for the home of Cape Noire’s own mad scientist, Prof. Bugosi. As the creator of these tales, the Air Chief is fascinated in seeing how Seattle gradually morphs into the make-believe city of Cape Noire.  Stay tuned for more as it develops.

Next up, we’re happy to announce that the second issue of our GUNS OF THE BLACK BAT mini-series for Moonstone Comics is now on sale at comicbook shops across the country.  Script by yours truly, art by Silvestry Szilagyi with a stunning cover by Michael Stirbling.  Adventure continues as the Black Bat continues to recruit pulp heroes to aid in his battle against the group known as the Black Sun.  Hope you’ll give it a look.

Finally, on a more serious note, this week the Air Chief had his annual visit with his oncologist. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this situation, we were diagnosed with two non-Hodgkin lymphomas (one in each lung) almost ten years ago now. That discovery was made by having the lower quadrant of our left lung removed so doctors could get to the node and learn what it was. Once we knew what the Air Chief had, we visited an expert in this kind of cancer at the Dana-Farber Center in Boston and we’re told ours is mostly a non-life threatening cancer. In fact that very doctor suggested we’ll most likely die of something altogether different long before this dime size node could hurt us. Still, it is a cancer and thus once a year we have it X-rayed and visit the oncologist. Always good to keep an eye on these things. Thus the visit this morning wherein we were told, considering my general state of well being, having no symptoms of any kind and the X-ray pic remaining unchanged, that Ye Old Air Chief is good to go for as yet another year.  Welcome news as always, though it doesn’t slow down time or aging in the slightest and come the 5th of Nov. we’ll still be hitting the big 70!  Damn, the Air Chief wonders, just how the hell did that happen?

Ron – Over & Out!

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!