Greetings Loyal Airmen, with Fall in full autumn regalia, we’ve got the Hangar 27 all decorated for one of favorite times of the year, Halloween.  Time whip up new costumes, read a little Edgar Alan Poe and stock up on tons of candy for those little spooks and goblins who’ll come Trick or Treating.   Fun times for sure.

And keeping up with the horror theme, it’s with a giant smile on our face that we announce the release of our latest Airship 27 title, SHERLOCK HOLMES – Secrets of the Dead by writer Jack Beddows. This is an incredible, full length starring the great detective and his ever present loyal ally, Dr. Watson, as they unravel a deep, dark mystery which takes them to the notorious London cemetary/rail station known as the Necropolis. Believe me Loyal Airmen, once the Air Chief started reading this, he could not put it down. The book features a gorgeous cover by artist Adam Shaw and has nine black and white interior illustrations by our own Rob Davis. It is available now from Amazon in both hard copy and on Kindle. A perfect reading experience for the season.

The Air Chief has always had a fascination with aviation in all its forms and one of the most fun days while on our recent vacation back east was visiting with our sister-in-law Sandy and her husband, Andy Fagan. Andy is into model airplane flying and took us along one morning to a nearby field where he and the members of his model plane club gather.  That’s him and the Air Chief above as he prepares one of his two planes. This one being a traditional prop model.

Up next was his red and white jet plane. Watching this beauty cut through the air was a real hoot.

Here is she about to take-off.  Both models were radio-controlled by a hand-held controller and it takes a really deft hand to handle these amazing models once they are airborn. We cannot thank Andy enough for allowing us to spend those great few hours with him and his pals. Truly wonderful memories we’ll cherish over the winter months when the cold sets in and snow covers the ground. Oh yeah.

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

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, here we are back at Hangar 27 after two glorious weeks back in New England. Valerie and the Air Chief had a great time visiting with family and friends. And we took lots of pictures to share with all of you. Like the one above of a giant lobster sculpture on the back of a flatbed truck we passed on the highway. Obviously going to be set as an advertising piece from a seafood restaurant.  And yes, Loyal Airmen, we did have some great seafood meals while there…to include fresh Maine lobster. Yummy.

We started our vacation in Bethel, Conn visiting with son Scott, his wife Katie and our two awesome grandkids, Taryn and Logan. Here’s a great shot of 14 yr old Taryn who is now a freshmen in high school. She belongs to the school’s marching band and Valerie and the Air Chief actually got to see them performance twice. She’s becoming a beautiful young woman and so talented.

And not to be outdone by the girls in the family, here’s a fun shot of son Scott, grandson Logan (9) and the Air Chief. The three amigos. Logan’s in Cub Scouts and he and his dad enjoy their time together. Scott is really a great father we are so proud of him. Our week with them went by all too fast.

Soon as we got into southern New Hampshire, we realized we had gotten into peek foliage season and snapped dozens of great photos showing Mother Nature’s autumn quilt.

The colors were simply breathtaking.  We also made a point to head out to the coast. As living in Colorado, we do miss seeing the beaches and the mighty Atlantic.

Above is a shot of the Nubble Lighthouse on York Beach, Maine, the place where Valerie and the Air Chief had their very first date. Great shot of her there, it was such a beautiful, glorious day.

Of course one of our major reasons for our trip was to see Mom, Gabrielle Fortier, who will be turning 91 on Nov 1st. She is doing great and that’s us together in her room with one of her many beautiful paintings on the wall behind us. We saw her every single day that second week in New Hampshire.

On our last night there, we hooked up with some of Valerie’s family and went out to dinner together. Our friendly waitress was kind enough to snap this group shot. Left to right, the Air Chief, Andy Fagan and his wife Sandy (Valerie’s younger sister) Gus Pappajohn and his wife Barbara (Valerie’s older sister) and of course Val. A wild and crazy bunch. We had a great time seeing them all again. Of course we visited with our daughter Michelle and her husband Chris and saw our dear friend Linda and Justin. All in all a truly awesome trip.  We miss them already.

Ron – Over and Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, and welcome back to our second October Flight Log. We thought it might be fun to talk about give-away premiums this week. A few years ago, while planning our convention trips, the Air Chief and Art Director Rob Davis got to talking about what kind of Airship 27 branded premiums we could produce economically and offer as give-aways at these shows.

The first one we came up with was our Airship 27 Productions cloth patch. Rob even whipped up a gorgeous flier to advertise them. We had 100 done up and over a two year period either sold them or gave them all away.  The idea of any premium is to work as an incentive to the customer at the same time be something to help advertise the company. For the patch, if any of our Loyal Airmen bought two or more of our titles at a convention, they would get a “free” patch.  Should they simply wish to buy one, we sold them for $3 each.  Needless to say they were a big hit among all our Loyal Airmen.

Last year we thought it was time to try doing coffee cups.  Unlike the patches, we could only sell these, so we conservatively had 5 made up. We sold the first four at the Windy City Pulp & Paper show and the last one went at PulpFest. It would be nice to do these again some day. But high priced items are always a tricky sell.

So what about next year, 2016?  Well, keeping in mind that Scaldcrow Games will be releasing their rpg module “Ron Fortier’s Cape Noire” game based on our Brother Bones series of pulp books, we started thinking it might be nice to do up some custom dice. Rob found a company on-line and began working with them to create the perfect set.  Eventually they came up with two designs.  One die would feature the Undead Avenger himself, Brother Bones and the other our dirigible log. See above. The middle die was that with the logo and sadly, the process of shrinking it down to fit the die made the lettering on the bottom banner undecipherable. After some back and forth, the production agent suggested the third image, that with our company name wrapped around the bottom of the logo. That works and so that will be the second piece to accompany the Brother Bones die.  Like the patches, these are cheap enough where we will either sell them for $3 a set, or give a set away for free to anyone who buys two or more of our titles.  We think they will make a very cool premium and hope please our Loyal Airmen.

These kind of things are fun to whip up and the Air Chief hopes all you Loyal Airmen appreciate them. We are always open to new ideas for such, so feel free to let us know. As the patches are all gone, we’re looking at new a brand new one for 2017.  What do you think?

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, with the regular baseball season coming to an end and the start of the play-offs just around the corner, we thought we’d look back on this season and the up and down struggles of our beloved Red Sox. If you aren’t into sports, feel free to skip this week’s entry and we’ll see you back here next week.

XANDER BOAGEARTS                      &           BROCK HOLT

After last year’s disastrous season, it was general accepted it was the Sox lack of hitting that doomed them thus over the winter months between 2014 and 2015, management set about bringing in more sluggers and thus picked up Hanley Ramirez and Pedro Sandoval to join Mike Napoli and Shane Victorino in backing up its regulars ala David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia.  What was obvious from the start was the fact that no real focus was put on going after super Ace Pitchers.  It became a regular debate in Spring Training. Could the Sox bat their way to victory with a mediocre pitching squad.

MOOKIE BETTS                                 &        RUSNEY COSTILLO

When April came along, the mixture of old players with new was almost 50/50.  Xander Bogaerts returned to play short-stop with the hopes that this season his hitting would improve. Brock Holt returned as a super utility player who could play most of the outfield and infield positions. In fact the only two positions he didn’t play that first half was pitching and catching. He would ultimately get picked to play in the All Star Game.  Mookie Betts, the speedy outfielder also returned along with Rusney Castillo and Jackie Bradley, Jr. Unfortunately Jackie was in a hitting slump and sent back down to Triple A soon.  Of course as all of us know, the season start was an abject failure, as the pitchers just weren’t up to winning games and all too soon the Sox were dropping to the bottom of the AL East.  Then they lost Pedroia to the Disabled List and their primary catcher, Vasquez for the entire season.

BLAKE SWIHART                             &          JACKIE BRADLEY JR.

Blake Swihart was brought up from Trip A to be the new catcher and he delivered. Not only could he play in the big leagues, but his hitting was great. By the All Star Break Victorino was let go and Napoli soon followed and Ramirez, a total failure in left field was injured and sidelined.  So Bradley Jr. was brought back from Triple A and he was a totally different player.  Now the outfield was guarded by three of the finest young players in baseball, Rusney Castillo in left, Jackie in center and Mookie in right and just like that the outfield was one of the finest in all of baseball.

TRAVIS SHAW

And with Napoli gone from first base, as yet another rookie was brought up. This time it was power hitter Travis Shaw who would be put in the line up after Ortiz and there deliver constantly.  When Pablo Sandoval came down with pneumonia, Brock Holt was set there thus giving us an infield of Hold, Boagearts, Pedroia (back from the DL) and Shaw.  Again, top notch, super talented young players.  And somehow the enthusiasm these seven rookies brought to the team was infectious as the lackluster pitching also started turning around with both Porcello and Miley at long last finding their groove.

Thus for the second half, we Red Sox watched a team with absolutely no hopes of making the play-offs go out night after night with nothing to lose…play their hearts out.  And guess what, they started winning…against the top tier teams.  Night after night putting such amazing displays of hitting and jaw-dropping defensive catches to make us once again cheer and smile.  Yup, the losing first half of this 2015 season was certainly brutal, but its end result, with these Magnificent Seven rookies has been so much fun to watch.  We only pray Red Sox management is paying attention and will hold on to this roster for next season, while being smart enough to go out and find some Ace pitchers to deliver solid outings.  If they can do that, then, if only by sheer whimsy, they’ll have taken victory out of defeat.  GO SOX!!

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, we’re coming to you a wee bit late today, but still making our Friday morning posting.  This week we thought we’d share a few reactions we’ve had to the new shows that started up on the various TV networks this past week.

First up is Minority Report, one of two sci-fi series that actually spun off major movie features.  The movie, “Minority Report,” starred Tom Cruise, was directed by Steven Spielberg and was based on a book by the late Philip K. Dick. This series picks up about five years after the events of that show.  It takes place in Washington D.C. of the future and deals with a lady copy teaming with a fellow who has the psychic abilities to see crimes before they happen.  Again, if you liked the movie, as the Air Chief did, you might want to catch this one.  If not, then take a pass.

Up next we had the highly anticipated Blindspot.  Anticipated because it stars the beautiful Jamie Alexander, who some of your Loyal Airmen will immediately recognize as Lady Sif from the three Thor movies Marvel Studio put. In this one she plays an amnesiac who is found naked in a bag in the middle of Times Square New York. She has absolutely no memory of who she is or how she got there, BUT…her entire body is covered with recently added tattoos…one of which is the name of a particular FBI agent.  He is called on to the case and before the first hour is over, one of the mystery woman’s tattoos has been instrumental in help to foil a terrorist attack. Now this is a twisty style mystery show and we did enjoy the first episode. We only hope the writers are playing fair with as and have an actual solution to everything.  Oh, and fans of the Cinemax series Strike Back will be happy to note that one of the two male action heroes of that old series is playing the FBI agent.  Forget his name.  He’s the fellow who starred in the recent 300 RISE OF AN EMPIRE.

Next up we have the second of our sci-fi entries and also another movie spin-off, Limitless.  In the feature film, Bradley Cooper played a down and out writer who is given a miraculous pill that allows him to use 100% of his brain capacity, thus making him an instant genius. The pitfall was the drug had disastrous effects in aging people rapidly to the point of eventual death. By the movie’s end, Cooper had funded a lab, came up with a counter drug that, when taken once a year, nullified the bad effects of the genius-pill and he is the new state senator of New York.  The TV show picks up about a year later and with another down and out fellow, this time a would be rock musician. When, through a series of events, he ends up with the same pill, he immediately uses it to save his father’s life, the gentlemen being sick from a rare malady the doctor’s can’t diagnose properly.  Oh, and he also gets wrapped up in a murder investigation and helps the FBI solve the crime. At the end, Bradley Cooper makes a rare TV guest appearance as the senator, now with ambitions to be president some day. He tells the young man about the antidote making him swear to never reveal its existence, thus he can continue to take the pill and help the FBI with his new found brain power.  A lot of fun, with charismatic actors in the various roles and the series will attempt to do what the movie never did, find out where the genius-pill came from in the first place.

Of course as much as the Air Chief loves sci-fi action tales, we also like to laugh and in this case that included the brand new Muppets show. Rather than repeat the old set up where everything revolved around their actual variety show, in this one they do a rift on reality shows in that Miss Piggy has gotten her on late night talk show, and Kermit is the show’s producer.  Problem is the two have broken of their romantic relationship and that traps all the familiar characters in the middle of that awkward day to day tension.  Honestly, we loved this show and it had us in tears. The scene with Fozzy Bear, in love with a real young lady, has dinner with her parents and the father brings up the question of what would have if they had children, was hilarious. Major thumbs up for the new Muppets.

And finally, remember that actor from Strike Back we mentioned being in Blindspot, well his partner from the Cinamax series also debut his own new project this week. The Player is a fast paced action series set in Los Vegas and proposes that the world’s richest people, being bored with all their wealth, have established a game wherein they bet on crime; that is crime that is about to happen.  In the set up Alex Kane, a former secret agent with a dark past, is recruited to be the Player whose job it is to foil these would be crimes.  His support team is a lovely young tech expert who represents the dealer, where as Wesley Snipe, in his first regular TV series, plays the House representative muscle, the Pit Boss.  Thus the rich folks either bet on Alex foiling the crime, on on the criminals succeeding. If you catch this opening episode you’ll see how Alex is pressured into becoming the Player. There is a mystery involving the murder of his wife that is at the core of his manipulation and will obviously be revealed as the series progresses from week to week. Again, an intriguing set-up and lots of cool action.  We’re going to give it a go.

And of course we had old favorites come back as well, in particular Castle and the Big Bang Theory.  Next week our favorite comicbook series return in Arrow and the Flash and we are eagerly awaiting the premier of the new Supergirl.   As for Gotham, we’ve dropped it.  Having stuck out its premier season, we decided it is really nothing we could get excited about.  Here’s hoping you’ve found some new favorites as well.

Ron – Over & Out!

This past Sat, the 12th of Sept. saw the premier of the new Fort Collins Comic Con, not to be confused with the FoCo Comics and Gaming Convention. Thus it became the third such convention to take place here in my new home town of Fort Collins, Colorado.

Upon learning of the event months ago, we were approached by the con’s promoters and asked if we’d attend and help them promote the show.  Both we were only too glad to do. Then week’s prior to the show we were informed that we’d be receiving a Legends of Comics award at the show. That came as a surprise and the Air Chief was more than a little nervous about that. Getting awards is always an awkward thing, as in all honesty, we simply don’t feel worthy of such. It is as if someone is going out of their way for thanking you for doing something you love to do. And yet saying no, you don’t want the award is a very rude thing to do.  And so manners, which our loving parents long ago, dictate we bite our tongues and agree to be thus honored.  Above is a photo of the Air Chief accepting this Legends of Comics award from Nathan, the show’s main promoter and organizer. It was still awkward, but the Air Chief was sincere in his thanks to the gathered crowd and especially the folks who put on this fun new show.  The day was a huge success, we met lots of old friends and made lots of new ones.  Here’s hoping this becomes an annual event. Who knows, maybe next year they will let me hand out the award to some other guy.  Now THAT would be fine by me.

As people from the show are still sharing pictures on-line, we thought we’d post this one of the Air Chief on a panel dealing with independent publishing. To my right was Radio Station-Manager-Turned-Comic Writer, Brian Hughes and to my left was an award winning novelist of young-adult books named Todd something, sorry, we really aren’t that good with names.  Anyway, upon seeing the above photo, the Air Chief’s immediate thought was imply, “Oh my God, I look just like my grandfather Fortier.” Amazing, what time does to all of us.

Meanwhile Airship 27 Productions has just launched its newest title – GHOST BOY Vol Two – featuring another quartet of stories starring the comic book hero of the 1960s, Ghost Boy. This volume features stories by J. Walt Layne, Lee Houston Jr., Terry Alexander and Erik Franklin.  The cover, painted by the amazing Zachary Brunner is based on a scene from Franklin’s story and is an homage to that classic Jack Kirby cover to Marvel’s Fantastic Four # 1.  We hope you give this book a look-see.  With fingers crossed, by the time all you Loyal Airmen are reading this Flight Log, it should be up at Amazon as a hard copy and then within a few days as a digital copy for Kindle.  Thanks ever for your continued support.  Up next will be a brand new Sherlock Holmes full length novel.

And that’s all for this week, Loyal Airmen. See you back here next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, and welcome to this week’s Flight Log.  This week we want to tell you about a truly strange experience we encountered earlier in the year which once again proved how often the line between what is real and what is make believe can be blurred.  Especially for a writer.

At the start of this year, the Air Chief was working away at writing the first ever Lady Action prose adventure would ultimately become “The Sands of Forever.” Above is the pencil composition Art Director Rob Davis whipped up for the cover and next to it the finished painting based on that composition by the super talented Ted Hammond. Now some books are easier to write than others. In the end it pretty much depends on one’s inspirations, those elusive muses that at times can bless the scribe with dozens of fantastic ideas while at others leave him or her floundering on the shore like a stranded guppy unable to come up with any kind of direction.

Thus is was for the Air Chief when at the first of the year we began writing this Lady Action book.  In the first few weeks we threw out several false starts and were at the hair-pulling stage. Oh, we knew the general shape we wanted to capture. In our minds this characters was always intended to be a female amalgamation of Indiana Jones and James Bond, half-spy, half-global adventurer. That was the one we needed to establish in a fast paced narrative. And so we kept plowing away at it, page after page doing our best to invent exciting action sequences that would entertain our readers and keep them turning those pages.  After about a month, we manged to make our way into the section where Nicola Sinclair, a.k.a. Lady Action, returns to A.C.T.I.O.N. headquarters for further assignment.  It was in this section that we began seeing just who the head of British ACTION really was…it was Nicola’s own mother, who everyone simply referred to as The Commander.  Okay, so that was a cool idea and the more we envisioned her the more she began to emerge fully developed out of our imagination.  The Commander had early on been one of the top secret agents for the British Government and being drop-gorgeous, her cover was that of a fashion super-model which allowed her to travel the world carrying out her mission’s for Queen and Country.  It was during this career that she ultimately married Lord Sinclair and had Nicola. But she still continued to work until one day an old foe planted a bomb in her sports car in an attempt to kill her. By a miracle, she survived but lost her left leg in the explosion.

Thus ended this vibrant woman’s spy career and she retired to become a full time mother.  It wasn’t until a few years later that representatives of A.C.T.I.O.N. approached her to assumed to leadership spot of their newly opened British HQ. At first she thought them mad. How could a one-legged woman be the commander of a super secret spy organization?  Upon posing this question, she received the one answer she never imagined; A.C.T.I.O.N. scientist had built a super prosthetic leg for her that was capable of incredible strength and dexterity. Once fitted to her, it would work ten times better than her original organic limb.  In the end Nicola’s mother tried on this amazing prosthetic and discovered it was just as great as the scientist had claimed and within days of putting it on, she assumed the leadership of British A.C.T.I.O.N. thus becoming The Commander.

The creation of The Commander was the one element that finally unlocked the puzzle of this project for the Air Chief.  Once we had her fully fleshed-out, the rest of the book began to fly off the pages. It was her creation that help identify Nicola to us and their tempestuous relation over the years in an almost love-hate manner. That the Commander was her mother only added to the tension of Nicola’s role as Lady Action and made the book work beyond our wildest dreams.  So we wrapped it up, got it published and the Air Chief is happy to say it has become one of our best sellers this year.

So you can imagine our utter shock when months after the book had been released, while surfing the internet one evening, we found these amazing pictures of a beautiful super model who had only one leg!!  Dear God in heaven, the Air Chief remembers thinking…”She’s real!  The Commander is real!”  The young lady pictured about above is Viktoria Modesta and she is one of the most sought after super models in the world today.  Unlike our fictional character, Viktoria is a real hero, who, despite a tragic amputation, refused to let go of her dreams and set about turning what looked to be a handicap into a something visually artistic and beautiful, this recreating herself ala a moth into a stunning butterfly.  And honestly, we had no clue this young lady existed when writing our book, thus upon discovering her, we could only shake our heads and smile. Sometimes life and fiction do mirror each other in the most fantastic ways.

Finally, to wrap up this week’s entry, Art Director Rob Davis put together the first draft of the cover to the giant benefit anthology we are doing to assist fellow new pulp creator, Tommy Hancock, so we can get a feel for how it would appear. Note, there are flaws in the image about, some names being broken up, and they will be corrected long before the final copy is set and the book is published.  What truly caught us by surprise was when we added just how many writers we had in this thing, 62, and how many graphic artists, 38.  Yup, if you just did the math in your head….we by nothing but dumb luck have ended up with 100 CREATORS!!!  Pretty darn amazing if you ask the Air Chief.  Now we have to put it all together.  Still looking for a late Oct, early Nov release.  Stay tuned.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, it looks like we’re going to kick off the Labor Day weekend with a really special new Airship 27 Productions book release.

JEZEBEL JOHNSTON – Devi’s Handmaid is the first book in a new saga by Nancy Hansen, a dear friend and one of the finest new pulp writers working today. It is a straight out, old fashion pirate adventure about a young girl who disguises herself as a boy to sign aboard a pirate ship. This is one of those book’s the Air Chief simply could not put down once we started reading. Nancy is such an amazing writer and all our Loyal Airmen should grab a copy of this soon to be classic right now. It features a cover by Terry Pavlet and interior illustrations by our own Rob Davis. The book is now available from Amazon in both hard copy and on Kindle.

On the comic front, the Air Chief’s work for Moonstone comics continues at a steady pace.  Recently super artist Michael Stribling turned in this cover for the first issue of GUNS OF THE BLACK BAT. It blew us out of the water when we first saw it. Naturally we’ll keep you posted as to when the first issue is completed and on-sale.

It was also a big week the Tommy Hancock benefit anthology project we’ve been putting together for over the past month.  At midnight on Monday, the deadline for story submissions ended and we woke up Tuesday to having logged in 62 brand new pulp stories by some of the finest writers in the business today. Thus ended phase one. Now it is on to phase two, getting 62 illustrations, one for each of the stories. To that end we’ve recruited a dozen gifted graphic artists who have begun turning in some amazing pieces. One such came in from our Art Director Rob Davis and it is the illustration for the Air Chief’s newest Brother Bones short that appears in this anthology.  Called “The Hideout,” the story features the three contest winners of the Scaldcrow Games Kickstarter campaign of a few months ago.  All three winners were written into the tale as hitmen trying to rub out the Undead Avenger.  Rob did a fantastic job of capturing their likeness; that’s Mark Kalita about to kick down a door, behind him with long hair is pal Gerald Kuster and then behind him holding a shotgun is Michael Brown. We hope our pulp fans enjoy their cameos. We’ll keep you posted on the book’s continued progress as ever.

So, where did summer go? Here we are entering into the Labor Day weekend and time continues to whip by.  The Air Chief will be the guest at a new one day comic con here in Fort Collins in another week, more about that next week.  Till then, have a great holiday weekend, be careful on the roads if traveling and thanks as ever for dropping by.  See you next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeetings Loyal Airmen.  Last week at the end of our Flight Log we announced the partnership between Airship 27 Productions and Radio Archives. Since then all paperwork has been signed and the official press release was sent out across the internet. We are truly excited about this and can’t wait to see which titles from our catalog, Tom Brown and his staff at Radio Archives will choose to bring to the airwaves.  This is going to be so much fun.

Ever since its debut a few months ago, the Air Chief’ pulp book, NIGHTHAWK from Moonstone Books has been selling extremely well.  We’ve sold out at our two last conventions and we are told Diamond has sold at of their stock. So we we’re extremely happy to hear this past week that the book is finally available now at Amazon.  Right now only in hard copy, but we fully expect to see it go up at Kindle soon enough.  For those of you who have already bought a copy and made it so successful, our heartfelt thanks.

We are also extremely happy to announce the third in our best selling Barry Baskerville children’s book adventures.  “Barry Baskerville Traps a Thief,” by Richard Keller with art by Gary Kato is now on sale at Amazon.  This is a perfect series for young children age seven and up. We truly hope you’ll check it out.

Well look at the above.  Within days of our starting this entry, Radio Archives notified us that the first Airship 27 titles they are going to bring to audio books are our two Mars McCoy Space Ranger titles.  Above is how the CD cases will look when produced. Volume one contains stories by Greg Gick, John Bear Ross and Andrew Salmon. Whereas Volume two contains two novellas, one by Van Allen Plexico and the other by James Palmer. We couldn’t be happier. This was a great choice on their part.  RA is known for their amazing sound special effects in their audio books. We can only imagine how these two will sound what with rocket ships blasting away the buzz of super rayguns.  Wahooo.

And finally out last item of the week, the Air Chief has finally joined the masses and gotten a smart-phone. We’ve been really gun-shy about these little hand-held devices for quite a while, but Valerie finally convinced us it was time to take the plunge. Now after having had it for several days and slowly begun to “play” with it, all we can envision is the Golum from Lord of the Rings as we hold it up and say, “My precious.”

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, the Air Chief and Art Director Rob Davis just came back from this yea’s Pulpfest in Columbus, Ohio, and honestly, we think it was the best Pulpfest ever. The folks who put it on did a stellar job, the crowds were bigger, we saw lots of Loyal Airmen who have become regulars over the years and made tons of new friends. Sales were really great, as pulp fans came and gobbled up so man of our books. It was most rewarding.

Now unlike comic shows, we see very few costumes at pulp conventions, but lo and behold, this charming lady showed up Saturday in her original Flash outfit and we thought it was terrific. Enough so that the Air Chief had to get a pix with her. We do love the Flash.

Another highlight of the show every year is our getting to moderate the New Pulp Panel. This year joining me on the platform, from left to right, were writers Frank Schildiner, Rick Lai, Jeff Fournier & Jim Beard. That’s the Air Chief to far left having a blast keeping the discussion moving along. Our theme was The Heirs of Weird Tales, whereas part of the con’s overall theme this year was celebrating perhaps the greatest pulp mag of them all, Weird Tales. And so our new pulp writers discussed how the writers who graced the pages of that classic pulp title were not only some of the best writers in the world, but how they influenced them personally in their own careers. It was a fast, fun-filled hour and it seemed out audience really enjoyed it a great deal.

Finally in regards to the show, the Air Chief needs to give a shout out to ALL our Loyal Airmen, our regular readers who support us so graciously.  During a busy selling period late Sat. afternoon, a gentlemen who had never bought from us before came up to our table and began perusing our titles. He was clearly interested and so the Air Chief began explaining who we were and what we did at Airship 27 Productions. In the middle of our little spiel one of our regular customers came up to the table, realized what we were doing and without any inducement what-so-ever from the Air Chief, turned and told this other fellow that we were the best publisher of new pulp in the hall and that all our titles were of the highest quality and there wasn’t a bad one on the table. Clearly taken with this unsolicited testimony, the newbie looked at him, turned around, scanned our books again and then bought two of them.  WOW!!!  And that Loyal Airmen is why we love you guys and gals so much. We simply could not do any of this without you. Thanks so very, very much!

As you Loyal Airmen know, beside all the writing and editing we do, we also continue to write a very widely read review column called “Pulp Fiction Reviews” where our goal is to bring to you Loyal Airmen a look at some amazing new books coming from small publishers which you would most likely not ever find in an Barnes & Noble store. Such a book was “Weasels Ripped My Flesh,” a collection of great adventure stories taken from the pages of the old Men’s Adventure Mags of the post-World War II era and edited by Bob Deis. It’s a great book and we recommended it highly in one of our recent reviews. Imagine our pleasant surprise when Deis and his co-editors did up the above ad featuring our image and a quote from that review. Here’s hoping this only helps increase their readership. You can find this at Amazon.

And finally we’re going to end this week’s Flight Log with some exciting news. We have just begun talks with the good folks at Radio Archives, an outfit out of California that does audio books in the fashion of old time radio dramatizations. For the past few years Radio Archives has made a name for themselves by adapting classic pulp novels such as Doc Savage, the Spider and many others. These are a hoot to listen to. Recently they’ve hooked up with our friends at Pro Se Production to adapt some of their great new pulp titles and now they are in talks with us to bring some Airship 27 Productions to the air-waves. Again, this is early in talks, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll soon be able to report some partnership that will be bring some of our fine titles to audio.  Stay tuned.

And there you have it, Loyal Airmen, as ever thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!