Greeting Loyal Airmen, this past week we had several events happen that reaffirmed our philosophy of never giving up on a story idea no matter how hopeful it may seem to get it published.  Two years ago we wrote a sci-fi strip starring a female space smuggler named Captain Jain Marlee and a gifted artist named Jimmy Bott was going to draw it for us.  Jim did three of the eight pages and then one day wrote the Air Chief saying for all kinds of personal issues, he was leaving comics altogether.  We were so sad to hear this as Jimmy's talent is outstanding.  We bid him adieu with nothing but well-wishes and then tried to find another artist to take on the strip.  That proved fruitless and in the script and those finished three pages simply languished in our “dead” files.

Then, two weeks ago, out of the blue, Jimmy contacts us again asking if he can finish the script.  Yup, he was back, with a new determination to wrap up what he'd begun two years ago.  We couldn't be happier and immediately resend him the script.  Above is Page # 1 for A COLD DEMISE, a Captain Jain Marlee adventure that Jimmy did two years ago.  As we pen these words he's busy at work on the last remaining five pages.  Once the strip is totally finished, you'll be seeing it pop up in our own anthology title; RON FORTIER'S TALES OF THE MACABRE.  Stay tuned.

                                            
Now if you think waiting two years to see a project completed, what would think about one that was written twenty-five years ago?   Several months, while the Air Chief was on the phone with his artist pal, Gary Kato (who does the Mr.Jigsaw series with us) Gary told mentioned having recently spent a day cleaning up old files in his art studio and among theme he found a short horror strip we had written and sent to him over two decades ago.  He asked if we remembered a story called, THE MIND OF DAVID QUEEN…and quite honestly, at first, we did not.  Ha.  Twenty-five years is an awful long time, Loyal Airmen.  Anyway, the more Gary discussed the plot it slowly began to itch at our dusty cluttered memory and until we actually recalled having done a story like that…though there was no way we remembered it in much detail.  Thing is Gary wanted to draw it at long last and of course we gladly gave him the green light to proceed. This week his manila envelope with copies of the finished strip arrived in the mail and we were truly excited at sitting down and reading it again…after twenty-five years.  Gary did such an awesome job with the art and this will also be slated for our TALES OF THE MACABRE comic. So stay tuned, Loyal Airmen.  As you can see, we never, ever let a good idea die.  No matter how long it takes to get realized.

On the pulp scene, Airship 27 Productions released its 24th title of the year this past week and the fourth volume in our SINBAD – THE NEW VOYAGES series.  This one has a quartet of exciting fantasy tales by Ian Watson, Jeff Fournier, Joe Bonadonna and Ralph L. Angelo.  The gorgeous cover seen above was painted by Pat Carabjal and the book contains nine beautiful black and white interior illustrations by Phi Cho.  We think the book is a winner and you buy it from Amazon as either a hard cover or digitally for their Kindle readers.  Thanks as ever for your support.

Finally, we want to wish all you Loyal Airmen and your loved ones a truly joyous and HAPPY THANKSGIVING.  While sitting around the dinner table enjoying a sumptuous turkey meal with all the fixings, take time to thank the Almighty God who has blessed all of us and our great country.  We here at Hangar 27 will be giving thanks to all our great writers and artists who make our books possible and to you, our Loyal Airmen, who have so wonderfully support us these past ten years.  THANK YOU..& GOD BLESS YOU.

Ron (Over & Out!)

Greetings Loyal Airmen and welcome to another Flight Log.  Last week we talked about how thrilled we were to have found a super talented penciler in young Barry McClain who would be illustrating “Man of Ash,” the third Simon Pryce mystery comic book, titled PRICE FOR THE ASKING.

The first thing Barry did, upon reading our script, co-written with Bill Gladman, was to do up some sketches of the principle characters to include the Detroit private eye hero, Simon Pryce (above).  As is easy to tell, Barry has a very loose, free-flowing drawing style which looks great, but does end up offering all kinds of challengers to an inker.  So we put out an ad at our favorite comic-creators site, Digital Webbing, explaining we were hunting for really talented inkers who could tighten up loose pencils.

Within twenty-four hours our ad generate a half dozen interested inkers all wanting a shot at be a part of this project.  So we sent all of them several of these character sketches Barry had done up and are now awaiting the results.  Among the very first to get back to us was one Paul Frey, whose inks over Barry's pencils were truly amazing (see above).  He really is confident in his brush strokes and though we've still a few other inkers to look at, we hope to have a final decision within a few days.  And quite frankly, Paul is very much at the head of the list right now.  We think you'll agree.

Over the past few weeks, Valerie and the Air Chief have seen quite a few outstanding movies.  From GONE GIRL to FURY, these are the kinds of straight up adult dramas, be they mysteries or action themes, that Hollywood holds for their Fall releases.  Well, this past week we finally went to see Christopher Nolan's outstanding, mind-blowing space adventure, INTERSTELLAR, starring Matthew McConaughey….and be loved it.  The plot basically revolves around the fact that in the near future the Earth is dying and will no longer be habitable for humans to live on.  Some day, as our sun continues to burn, that will be a reality.  Whereas in this movie, unknown forces have opened up a black hole near the planet Saturn as if inviting mankind to pass through into another part of the universe where there could be earth-like planets for us to escape to and survive.  McConaughey plays Cooper, the pilot given the job of taking the mission through this black hole.  Whereas he has to leave his family behind well aware of the Einstein theory of relativity that time will not move at the same speed for him and his crew as it will for the people on earth.  Meaning, even is they should succeed in finding a safe haven for earth, but the time they returned, everyone they knew would have aged considerable, including Cooper's daughter, whose faith in him is at the core of this amazing film.

Okay, so there are scientist who've made it a point to pan the movie for its scientific inaccuracies as if that was the point of the entire movie.  Sadly they fail to grasp the fact that movies are not documentaries and Christopher Nolan is more interested in the larger issue; how long do we keep trying to save the earth before we begin to get back to a true, dedicated space program that will allow us to leave this world and move out into the stars.  He, and ye old Air Chief, believe, that man is wired with a questing gene and though the earth is our birthplace in the universe, it was never meant to be our permanent home.  The Air Chief constantly butts head with obsessed environmentalist who would have us squander billions of dollars on saving one single planet while at the same time shutting the gates to man's future amongst the stars…where we will one day inhabit millions of planets.  IF….we are smart enough to reach for those stars.  Only time will tell.  Till then, go see INTERSTELLAR, it's a winner.

Ron – Over & Out!

This past Wednesday, Nov. 5th, ye old Air Chief turned 68!  Yup, we are still scratching our head trying to figure out exactly how that happened.  Honestly, we don't feel a day over 16, the real age deep inside this old frame.  Hahahaha.  Honestly, Loyal Airmen it was such an incredible, fun day.  We woke up to 127 e-mail Happy Birthday wishes from our Facebook account.  And we vowed to thank each and everyone we would receive throughout the entire madcap day.  We lost count way past 300.  It was both fun and humbling to be so well thought of us by all of you.  Mere words can't convey our gratefulness.  God has truly blessed this wonderful life.   Of course the family held off until after dinner for our personal little birthday shindig put on by Valerie, Alan and his wife Nicole, and our grand kids Cora and Alex. Above is a pix as the Air Chief is surrounded by his new toys and treats.  A giant Star Wars Stormtrooper action figure which, for no particular reason, we've named Mike.   Cora, a truly gifted young artist, drew a pix of actor David Tennant as Doctor Who, a show the Air Chief loves.  There were several Amazon gift cards….for which we say…WAHOOO.  Our Wish List there is about to be knocked down a few items.  In the bag was a new book and Blu-Ray DVD….and finally, that yummy looking thing in front of the Air Chief was (note the past tense) a peanut-butter pie.  Oh, yeah.   All and all a fantastic birthday…and to all of you who took the time to send along those wishes….THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

On to more fun news.  Early today Moonstone Books put out their Press Release for a new anthology called DAY OF THE DESTROYERS that features a brand new classic pulp hero, Jimmie Flint – Agent X-11 who battles to save America in the 1930s from a group of revolutionaries.  Gary Phillips edited the project and beside the Air Chief, the anthology contains stories from Adam Garcia, Gary Phillips, Paul Bishop, Eric Fein, Tommy Hancock, Jeri Westerson, Aaron Shaps and Moonstone's own Editor Joe Gentile.  The book has a scheduled March 2015 release date.  Oh, and our story is called, HELL FROM ABOVE.  We'll continue to keep you posted as when you can pre-order this really great book.

On the comics front we've got yet more great news.  Two years ago, writer Bill Gladman and the Air Chief created a new private eye character who operates out of Detroit.  His name was Simon Price and we play with that in calling the series – PRICE FOR ASKING.  Bill wrote the first issue and it was illustrated by Brian Latimer.  We wrote the second and our pal, Rob Davis, provided the art.  See covers above. Both are still available from (www.IndyPlanet.com).   Thing is, Bill and the Air Chief then co-wrote a third mystery called MAN OF ASH which we hoped to get out in short order.  Alas, proving to find another art team for this third story just didn't work out and one artist after another first signed on and then bailed on us.  Truly frustrating.  In the end we simply filed the script away.

As you'll recall, the Air Chief was a guest at a local Colorado comic con two weeks ago. Well, it was there we met young Colorado artist Barry McClain.  He was kind enough to show us his portfolio and we were blown away by his drawing skills.  After the show, we kept in touch via e-mails and Barry let it be known how much he wanted to do a project with ye old Air Chief.  Which was when we remembered that third and final Simon Price tale.   And so we offered it to Barry and he eagerly signed on.  Even as we write these words, Barry is busy at work bringing MAN OF ASH to graphic life.  We couldn't be happier.  Again, stay tuned and we'll keep you posted as it progresses.  We might even post peeks at the new artwork.

Which in the end proves you never give up on a project.  Ever.  Just as the Good Lord has never, in his infinite love and mercy given up on us.  As this past week proved.  Take care and as ever, thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, as promised, we are back this week with lots of pictures from our fun time last weekend as a guest at Rocky Mountain Con # 2.  Remember, this con was established last year as a charity event to collect funds for the victims of the Aurora Movie House shooting a few years ago.  Tim Moret is the genius with the big heart who put this all together and to him go our heartfelt thanks for another great show.  The Air Chief had a blasts meet old and new friends.

Pro-comic book Chad Hardin was the big Guest of Honor at this year's show.  Here he holds up a copy of the super popular Harley Quinn comic series is currently drawing for DC comics.  It was a special treat for the Air Chief to finally meet Chad as he had three of our past Airship 27 pulp titles with his cover paintings, the last being the cover to Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Vol V.  Chad is an awesome dude with a great sense of humor.  Only wish we could had more time to spend together.

Now the fun of these shows is all the costume players and Rocky Mountain # 2 had some truly amazing, creative and just plain awesome cos-players.   My two were the young man abvoe dressed as the new TV Flash.  His costume was almost an exact duplicates of the one worn on the show.  Just fantastic.

Equally amazing…to the point of mind-blogging, was this fellow dressed as Batman's arch enemy, Mister Freeze…complete with bubble dome, goggles and white skin.  It were as if he'd stepped out of the animated series to flown blown life.  We can only imagine the hours of work that went into this terrific outfit.

The second artist guest ye old Air Chief was thrilled to meet a long last was California based artist, Michael Dorman.  As most of you know, Mike is my partner on the new BLACK BAT – DOMINO LADY comic series we are currently doing for Moonstone Comics.  Mike is so damn talented and the work he has done on the Air Chief's scripts is stunning.  He's also a grown up class-clown and kept all of us stitches during the entire weekend.

Amongst our Fort Collins gang of creators present as well was our friend Todd Jones, who just happened to have a booth directly across from Mike's and snapped this pix of Mike and the Air Chief holding up that gorgeous limited editon print Mike had made up just for this show alone.  First thing Sat morning he gave us a copy and it will soon be hanging up on our wall Hangar 27 HQ.

Speaking of that special Denver print, it shows the Black Bat & Domino Lady battling bad guys in 1930 in front of the Colorado state capital building in front of which stands the famous Bronco Buster statue.  Well, while we were all doing our thing at the convention, Mike Dorman's lovely wife Jamie and his son, Trenton, went Denver sightseeing and upon spotting that famous landmark, they stopped and posed Trenton in front of it holding up his father's beautiful art print.  Too cool.

Meanwhile back at the Con, Todd went and snapped this shot of a very well done Iron Man cosplayer…and hey, who is that behind him to the right?  Ha.  The Air Chief manning his booth of course. Which is as good a time as any to personally thank Todd for taking most of the photos in this week's Flight Log.

And here's the Air Chief himself as ever having a grand time.  Sincerely, we so love meeting comic book fans of all ages and spending time with other creators.  We are happy to report we did make a whole lot of new contacts at this show and from those, several new and fun projects were discussed and begun.  Stay tuned.   And hey, do you Loyal Airmen like my new Mr. Jigsaw baseball shirt?  Had it made up just for this show.

Of course seeing all these great cosplayers, ye old Air Chief eventually had to get in on the fun, especially with these two really fun kids, she as Poison Ivy, he as…well he's either Action Jackson …or even Michael Jackson.  With that Afro, who can tell.  But they were so much fun to talk to and graciously consented to take this pix with the Air Chief.

And finally, we earlier mentioned con promoter, Tim Moret.   Well this year, Tim went and recruited a Girl Friday in the overly competent Amanda Kay.  A seasoned cosplayer herself, she fearlessly took on the task of being Tim's guest co-coordinator and it was her job to see that guest like the Air Chief, were given proper booths, recruited for various panels and just generally making sure all of us were comfortable and had everything we needed to have fun.   As things were wrapping up Sunday afternoon, Amanda went around thanking people and saying goodbye.  When she spotted the Air Chief packing up, she pulled out her smart-phone and asked to us to do a “selfie.”   Ha.  And here it is.  Amanda admitted to be wiped out at the end of the show, but said she had so much she's already agreed to do the job again next year.  Bravo!!

And there you have it, Loyal Airmen, a colorful look back at a truly super awesome weekend at the Rocky Mountain Con.  Tim promises next year's show will be even better…and bigger.  Wow!!  We can't wait.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, as most of you are reading this, the Air Chief will be busy packing up his comics and other goodies to take to this year's Rocky Mountain Con being held Sat & Sun. But more about that in a minute.  Right now it's time to promote our 23th Airship 27 Productions title of the year.

Several years ago, British writer I.A. Watson came to us with this idea to write a brand new trilogy re-writing the Robin Hood saga.  Whereas he lives near Sherwood Forest and is a huge fan of the legend, we were totally receptive to the idea never realizing back then what a great series he was about to write for us.  Soon we had ROBIN HOOD – KING OF SHERWOOD out and our readers loved it.  What Watson had done was placed the myth against a real historical background and blended them so that while reading the familiar Robin Hood tales, albeit in a new and exciting presentation, fans were also getting a marvelous dose of authentic British history as well.

Soon ROBIN HOOD – ARROW OF JUSTICE was out and the following year the entire thing wrapped up with ROBIN HOOD – FREEDOM'S OUTLAW.  Believe me, we are Airship 27 Productions be more proud of these three amazing books…and if you are a true Robin Hood fan and have yet to read them, we advise you strongly to do so.  Anyway, late last year Watson wrote me saying that he still had a half dozen or so short Robin Hood tales, some that had seen print in other publications, some never, and a few added histories about the character, the legends and that time in English history.  The thing is, combined, all these extra stories were enough to fill as yet another book.  But should we do it?  A trilogy usually means three books and then you are finished.  Well, considering the quality of what he had given us previously and the entertainment these book gave our Loyal Airmen, we realized it would be a crime NOT to publish what we came to promote as a very special, BONUS fourth title – ROBIN HOOD – FORBIDDEN LEGEND.  See that great cover above by Jesus Rodrigues, his first work for us…but not his last.  The volume, now available at Amazon in both hard copy and Kindle, has those short stories, essays, maps and even an 8 pg Robin Hood comic strip illustrated by our own Art Director, Rob Davis.  That alone should make you want to get it immediately.  It truly is a super package and we hope you'll give it try.

Okay, back to subject about the Rocky Mountain Con.  We showed you this amazing limited edition print by artist Michael Dorman, who will be one of the many guests at the show,  a few weeks ago and response to it has been amazing.   RMC is being held at the Crown Plaza Convention Center located only a few miles from the Denver International Airport. Along with the Air Chief and Mike, other guests include Mike Baron (Badger – Nexus) Chad Hardin (DC's Harley Quinn) and one of the most accomplished Marvel artists of the 1960s, Mr. Bob Hall.  And dozen of others.  The show opens 10 a.m. on Sat and kicks off with the Air Chief moderating a panel on comic writing, joining me will be writers Todd Jones and Shawn Gustofson.  Should be a blast.  Also remember, part of the proceeds for this weekend's show go to AURORA RISE, the charity established to help the victims of that tragic movie house shooting in Aurora, CO several years ago.  It is a great cause and the show brings in quite a few dollars for it.  So again, if you are anywhere in the Denver, Cheyenne area this weekend, why not drive on up and come join the fun.

And there you go, Loyal Airmen.  Hopefully we'll have some photos of the con to show you next week. Till then get ready, HALLOWEEN is coming fast!!
Ron – Over and Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen.  We've got some really fun items to discus this week so let's get started.  Airship 27 Productions has two brand new titles that were just released within the last week and a half.  One of them perfectly suited for Halloween.

THE PURPLE SCAR is our latest pulp thriller…with a clear emphasis on that word thriller.  Perhaps one of the scariest pulp characters ever created, he was Dr. Murdoch, a plastic surgeon, well known and respected in his community.  Then one night his brother, a policeman, was gunned down by mobsters.  They then threw acid in his face before throwing his body in the river.  When it was washed ashore, the dead man's face was a real horror to look upon.  Seeing it, Murdoch vowed to bring his brother's killer to justice and to do so he assumed a new vigilante identity.  He made a plastic death-mask of his brother's scarred face, one he could pull over his own face and use to go after criminals.  No doubt many had coronaries just looking upon that frightening, purple visage.  Now Airship 27 brings four brand new creepy tales of the Purple Scar as written by Gene Moyers, Jim Beard, Jonathan Fisher and Gary Lovisi. The art for the book, including that amazing cover above was all done by Canadian artist Richard Serrao with the colors on the cover provided by Shannon Hall.  We think it is easily one of the most stunning we've put out.  The book is now on sale at Amazon in both hard copy and on Kindle.  We hope you'll check it as it really is the perfect pulp fare for Halloween.

On a much lighter note, Airship 27 Production's second release was our latest children's book, JAMIE AND THE FISH-EYED GOGGLES.  The story is by Ye Old Air Chief and the super colorful art is by our pal, Gary Kato.  When Jamie and his friend Kristi a pair of goggles in the town library, they soon learn that the goggles possess a strange magic and when they look through them…..well…we don't want to give everything away here, do we?  We were inspired to write this story from a picture taken of our grandson Alex while on a family trip to Disneyland in Calif.  That was almost eight years ago.  And now the book is finished and available, again, at Amazon both in hard copy and on Kindle.  Early reviews, especially from grade school teachers has been extremely heartwarming.  So if you've little ones in your house, you might want to give this a look-see.  The intended target is kids between 7 and 11.

                                       
And lastly we wanted to leave you all with a really special sneak-peek.  At present we are writing two new comic book series for Moonstone Comics.  One of these is called GUNS OF THE BLACK BAT and is a kind of pulp hero team up book, with half a dozen such classic characters, under the guidance of the Black Bat, banding together to save New York City from a deadly plague that mutates both humans and animals into monstrous beast.  Toward the end of issue number one, the pulp heroes on the ground get some air-support from a brand new pulp character we recently created, he's called NIGHTHAWK – The Flying Spy and will soon be making his debut in a prose novel coming from Moonstone Books.  So you'll be seeing him in both prose and comics.  The artist on the comic is the super talented Silvestre Szilagyi and believe me the Air Chief couldn't be happier in seeing these early pages.  The guy is a major talent and we think this pulp comic is going to WOW comic fans everywhere.  Stay tuned, we'll keep you posted as it moves along towards publication.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  As you can see things just keep hoping here at Hangar 27.  Thanks ever for stopping by and we'll see you back here in seven days.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen.  As you'll remember, last week we celebrated our pal, and Airship 27 Production's Art Director, Rob Davis, who retired from his day job.  Even more than we had expected, Rob's being available now to work on our various projects has pumped up our output tremendously.

Last year we produced 18 books, our best year ever.  This week we released book # 20 for 2014…and we've still got a whole two months left to go.  We are truly rolling now, Loyal Airmen.  And that 20th title is THE BAY PHANTOM – Confederacy of Devils by Chuck Miller.  It introduces the pulp world to a brand new hero operating out of Mobile, Alabama in the 1930s. The book is an original twist on the old avenger types, what with racial bigotry and political corruption a major backdrop to this tale of action and adventure.  The cover and interior illustrations were all provided by the amazing Zachary Brunner.  The book is available at Amazon in both hard copy and on their Kindle. As ever, we hope you'll give it a try.

And speaking of talented artists, one of the greatest illustrators of the past thirty years in the comics and animation field has been Bret Blevins.  Bret has worked for the major comic companies from Marvel, to DC and Disney and over the years won several Emmy Awards for his work at Warner Animation on several of their various comic based TV series.  A truly illustrious guy and the big news is, Bret is doing a project with us here at Airship 27 Productions.  That's right, he is all the art for the first ever full length RAVENWOOD – Stepson of Mystery novel by writer Micah Harris called The Return of the Dugpa.  The nine interior illos are finished and all of them are fantastic whereas Bret is now at work on the painted cover and we can't wait to see it.  With fingers crossed, this title should be coming your way in just a few short weeks.  It is because of super nice people like Bret that we've earned the reputation of putting out the best looking New Pulp books on the market today.

And finally this week we are putting the final touches on our latest children's book, one we actually wrote almost fourteen years ago – JAMIE & THE FISHEYED GOGGLES.  Months ago we dug it out of our files, dusted it off and sent it to our pal, and Mr. Jigsaw artist Gary Kato, to illustrate.  This past week he turned in dozens of amazing illos (like the one above) to accompany the text and of tonight it is off to Amazon.  We hope to have it on sale in the next few days…and we'll post the actual cover here next week with the news that it is available for sale.  Stay tuned.

Finally before signing off this week, allow us to make a plea for people who truly love to read.  Because our output at Airship 27 is increasing rapidly, we find ourselves short of proof-readers; people to look over our text files to catch omitted words and other such typos.  At present we've only two regular proofers and we really need more.  Now there's no pay involved, but a proof reader does get a free PDF of the book he or she reads for us and if they so desire to purchase a hard copy of the publish title, they can buy it from us at our cost, plus a small shipping and handling fee.  So if you are a Loyal Airmen who loves our books and would like to be an official member of the production team, please drop me a line.

That's it.  Take care, Loyal Airmen and as ever, thanks for stopping by.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen.  What with the baseball season officially over (we're into the October playoffs now) it was with a heavy heart that we watched our beloved Red Sox end at the bottom of the AL East. And when we look at the past three years, the roller coaster image pervades.  Under Bobby Valentine in 2012, the Sox sucked big-time. Then they came back last year to win it all; 2013 World Series Champs. You have to know that had everybody talking.

So what would one expect back in the Spring, coming into the 2014 season with pretty much the same team intact?  Not that we'd end up in last place…again.  Down…up…down…that roller coaster of life just keeps rolling along.  And its a great metaphor for life.  Really.  Sure, the journey for all of is from birth to death, no one can escape that.  But its never a simple, straight forward road from here to there.  Nope, it has its valleys and its peaks….all the time.  Life is that roller coaster adventure and when we learn to accept that, its that much more fun to enjoy the ride.  As for our beloved Red Sox, hey, there's always next year.

And keeping with the same metaphor, let's look at a really UP story for this past week.  Our good buddy and Airship 27 Productions' very own Art Director, Rob Davis finally reached that Promised Land known as Retirement this past week.   Yup, Rob kissed the day-job goodbye…forever.  And you know we couldn't be happier, having reached that goal ourselves almost thirteen years ago.  For Rob this means lots more time with his wife and family and a whole lot more time in his art studio doing what he does best, creating amazing projects through his art and design skills. Want proof?  Check out the following, please.

After almost two months without a new release, Airship 27 this past week put out our 19th title of the year, JUNGLE TALES – Vol II, featuring Ki-Gor Jungle Lord.  It features three new Ki-Gor adventures by retired teacher John Rose, with interior illustrations by Clayton Hinkle and a great cover by Andy Fish…all put together by Rob.  The book is now available at Amazon both in hard copy and on Kindle, as ever we hope you'll check it out.  Trust me, it was great to finally get a new title out…and with we broke our old production record of 18 books in one year done in 2012.  And with three full months left to go in 2014…..AND….Rob working in his studio most of the time from now on, it is going to be anybody's guess as to how many more really cool pulp books and comics we can get out before year's end.  Stay tuned, this is going to be fun.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we trust you are all enjoying this wonderful Fall season.  Baseball play-offs kick off next week and although our beloved Red Sox had a losing year, we are still anxious to see who does go on to win this year's classic World Series Championship.  As for the Sox, hey, as we say in baseball, “Wait till next year!”  Ha.

In trying to come up with this week's topic, the Air Chief got to thinking about the various facets of Airship 27 Productions.  When we and Rob Davis began this New Pulp Fiction venture nearly ten years ago now, both of us agreed artwork would be a crucial element in the process.  We wanted to be sure our books clearly followed the tradition of the classic pulps with both gorgeous cover art and beautiful interior illustrations.  Of course when we got the ball rolling ten years ago, we were one of a small handful of publishers.  All too soon that changed as more and New Pulp publishers entered the arena.

Both the Air Chief and Rob enjoy good, healthy competition from these other outfits as most of them are owned and operated by some of our dearest friends and colleagues.   In fact, we liked these men and women so much, we make it a point to not get upset when some of the more flamboyant souls dish out their marketing spiels as to being “…the leading company…”  “..the most innovative publisher..” etc. etc. etc. Its all hype intended to convince the readers they are the best at what they do.  We get it and again, for the most part, we simply laugh it off.  Rob and the Air Chief never started Airship 27 Productions to compete with anyone…but ourselves.  That means we are constantly challenging each other to find the best writers and artists out there and to assemble the best, quality products we can offer you, our loyal readers.  It is never about “beating” the other guy. 

But there is one particular element in our books that is superior to all others and that is the amazing professional excellence of the artwork we showcase with each and every title we release. In that department we don't take a back seat to anyone.  Period.  And honestly, our past 97 titles are proof enough to that claim.  Has every book we've put out been perfect?  Hell no.  There have been missteps along the way, but those only spur us to get better all the time.  Thus this week the Air Chief wanted to show off some of that fantastic artwork we're been bragging about.  What follows are three sneak peeks by three totally awesome artists.

                                         
                                                                  PHIL CHO
One of our most successful series of the past few years has been our SINBAD – The New Voyages. Thus far we've released two anthologies and one full length novel.  At present we are putting together another anthology and it features a brand new artist to Airship 27, one Phil Cho.  A mutual friend recommended us to Phil, he sent us some of his art samples and both Rob and the Airship were mightily impressed with his drawing skills.  Above is one of the 12 pieces that will be featured in this volume.  Phil is a true find and we're thrilled to have him on board.

                                        
                                                          NIK POLIWKO
Two years ago we published an anthology featuring a 1930s private eye called Rick Ruby, created by writers Bobby Nash and Sean Taylor.  Now we are putting together the second anthology in this series and were thrilled to have been able to recruit professional graphic artist Nik Poliwko to do the interior illos.  Nik is an artist we've long admired and when he agreed to join us on this project we were delighted.  Above is one of three pieces that will go with a tale called, “The Long Kill,” by none other that Ye Old Air Chief.  Trust me, we couldn't be more excited.

                                       
                                                    ZACHARY BRUNNER
Whereas we've been teasing with images from our interior illustrators, we thought you'd like to see the preliminary sketches for a new cover coming very, very soon from Airship 27 Productions.  Writer Chuck Miller has written a gripping pulp thriller called, “BAY PHANTOM – Confederacy of Devils,” which has a Shadow like hero operating in the Deep South during the 1930s. It is one of the finest pulp adventures we've ever had the pleasure of reading.  So to do it justice, we recruited the phenomenal Zachary Brunner to supply both the interior illustrations and the fully painted cover.  Above is Zachary's preliminary sketch for that cover and as you can see it is PURE PULP DYNAMIC.  This is Zachary's fourth book for Airship 27 and believe us, working with him is a joy for both Rob and the Air Chief.

And these are only three of the two dozen superb artists who work with us on a regular basis, both established pros and talented newcomers.  We are always on the look-out for new artists as we feel you, our Loyal Airmen, deserve nothing but the best and that's always our goal.  So far it seems to have worked extremely well.  Thanks for stopping by.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen and welcome to this week's Flight Log.  This time around the Air Chief thought we'd talk to you about two our favorite pulp heroes; one a classic from the 1930s & 40s and the other one of own invention and how they are both going to be showing up soon in new books and comics.

                             
I.V. Frost was created by writer Donal Wandrai and appeared in 18 stories, all of which were published in CLUE Magazine.  Frost was a combination Sherlock Holmes and Mike Hammer, a brilliant scientist, investigator not afraid to get his hands dirty or throw a punch.  He was assisted by the equally brilliant Ms. Jean Moray.  Having discovered Frost stories in a collection many, many…many years ago, we always entertained the hope that some day we'd be able to write new adventures of this great couple.  Lo and behold, along comes our old pal Joe Gentile of Moonstone Books asking if we'd like to write brand new I.V. Frost comics and prose adventures.  We jumped at the change and within a year had written one prose adventure and three comic strip tales.  Joe assigned artist Jake Minor (see above) to illustrate them.

Alas sometimes even the best plans don't materialize and as the years rolled on, it was obvious Moonstone just wasn't going to be able to do all of these Frost stories as they had hoped.  By this time Jake had drawn only one of the strips and illustrated the single prose story.  Joe assured us these two stories would eventually see print and we still believe that will happen.  But that still left us with two comic strips collecting dust in our files.  Which was when we got the idea to bring aboard our dear friend and Mr.Jigsaw artist Gary Kato to help us bring these two scripts to visual life.  Gary gladly signed on and we sent him the scripts. At the same time, pal Rob Davis, not only agreed to publish them in a one shot I.V. Frost comic, but went along with our idea of doing it FULL COLOR.  Till now there had never been a full color Redbud Studio title.  To that end we recruited super colorist Casey Beamis who did a fantastic job. When we told Jake Minor what we were doing to two unused scripts, he graciously volunteered to draw the cover for us.  The book was released just in time for Pulp Fest and that's the gorgeous cover above.

        
So thus far we were really happy with how all of this was turning out.  Then, out of the blue, Joe contacted us again.  This time he wanted to know if we'd be willing to help him finish a two part comic series he was producing that would feature a group of classic pulp heroes all banding together to save New York City.  For various reasons the writer who had penned the first half of the story was no longer available to make the changes needed in that script and so the Air Chief jumped in.  Imagine our surprise when we realized one of the pulp heroes involved was none other than our favorite I.V. Frost.  Hot dog!  We did our re-write of the first script and then went ahead and wrote the entire second part.  Believe us, Frost and Jean Moray continue to play a huge part in the saga which also includes, the Black Bat, the Phantom Detective, Jim Anthony Super Detective, Ki-Gor Jungle Lord and a brand new character of our own invention, Nighthawk the Flying Spy.  The art for this two part comic series is by the amazing Silvestre Szilagyi and that's one of his panels abvoe, showing Frost, Jean and a guest, in their lab dissecting a giant rat.  Oh, yeah.  This is wall to wall pulp action.  It will be a while before the books see print, but rest assured we'll let you know when they are due out.

                                              
Okay, so we've told you how much fun we've been having writing a little known classic pulp hero. Well, we also love creating brand new pulp heroes of our own, ala Brother Bones the Undead Avenger.  But the first real new pulp hero we ever created in prose was the beautiful Kate Furyaka, better known as Ms Fury.  Ages ago, we were invited to contribute a short story to an anthology to feature female action heroes.  The editor didn't care what the genres were, be they mystery, horror, western or whatever, as long as the hero was female.  Almost instantly we dreamed up Kate.  Her father was Japanese and her mother Scandinavia, which resulted in a tall, statuesque brunette with almond eyes.  Ms.Fury would be a female Doc Savage traveling the world having all kinds of adventures.  In this, her premier story, we also invented her companion and sidekick, former Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman, Donat Cartier…who also just happened to be a werewolf.

That one and only story was called FURY IN VERMONT and was published without any accompanying illustrations what-so-ever, much to our dismay.  Of course we'd always hoped to do more of her adventures but as often happens in life, other things got in the way.  Things like retiring from the day-job and then starting up Airship 27 Productions etc.etc.etc.  And poor Ms Fury just languished, all but forgotten.  Then, just about two years ago, fellow new pulp publisher, Tommy Hancock began publishing a regular anthology series called Pro Se Presents to which we submitted a few Brother Bones stories. When Tommy was happy to get those, we brought up FURY IN VERMONT and asked if he'd like to reprint it.  He was only too happy to do so…and this time found a really gifted artist to do up one illustration to go along with the story.  (See above.)  And so a new audience was introduced to Kate Furyaka after almost ten years.  Once again we wondered if we'd ever be able to do any new stories with her and Donat.  But it just wasn't to be. 

About three months ago, another pulp friend, Rich Harvey, informed us that he was going to get back into publishing his own mag, PULP ADVENTURES, which he had ended with issue #14 a long while back.  Rich was looking for material and put out the word.  Now as much as any such call for stories is tempting to a pulp writer like the Air Chief, there really are just so many hours in the day and our commitments for the rest of 2014 pretty much made it impossible for us to take on anything else.  So we let Rich's invite go floating by us truly hoping others would sign on instead.  A few more weeks go by and then we get a personal message from Rich saying he still needs material but this time tells us he is willing to reprint something we've already done and had published before.

Really?  And just like that Ms.Fury was calling us again to put her back on the stage.  We pulled out the manuscript to FURY IN VERMONT and cleaned it up yet again and sent it off to Rich explaining fully its print history.  Much to our delight, Rich really liked the story and agreed to use it.  Next thing we learn is that PULP ADVENTURES # 15 is also contain stories by E.Hoffman Price, Robert Leslie Bellem and our recently departed colleague C.J. Henderson all under a gorgeous cover by the legendary pulp painter, Norm Saunders.  Yup, that's it above.  Honestly, we are still pinching ourselves to see if this is all real.  PULP ADVENTURES # 15 will debut at Rich's own annual con, PULP ADVENTURE CON being held Nov. 1st this year…and then it will be available on his Bold Venture website.

But that's not the end of our story, Loyal Airmen.  You see what we didn't know when offering Rich this tale was that he was going to recruit artist Ed Countts to do some truly awesome interior illustrations for the stories, including ours.  Above is the beginning rough sketch of Kate by the talented Mr. Counts, the second artist to depict here. We weren't about to reveal the completed piece yet. That wouldn't be fair to those folks who pick up a copy at the show.  But the sketch alone has us really, really happy.

And that's how Ms.Fury's one and only adventure will, by Nov, have been published three times. As ever, its our hope that this third printing will as yet find her more readers.  Maybe enough to start banging on the Air Chief's door to bite the bullet and write more of her daring adventures.  Let's keep those fingers crossed.

And there you have it Loyal Airmen, I.V. Frost and Kate Furyaka, two pulp heroes the Air Chief absolutely enjoys and hopes to keep writing for many, many years to come. Thanks as ever for stopping by.  We'll see you back here next week.

Ron – Over & Out!