Greetings Loyal Airmen, as coincidence would have it, as we pen these words for you to read tomorrow morning it is Sept.11th.  Thirteen years since America was attacked by fanatical Islamic terrorists who despise our country and its freedoms. It was the beginning a war for the hearts and minds of all mankind that is still being waved today and our enemies grow ever stronger.  We must never weaken our resolve do defend our great democracy and way of life and defeat all who would dare destroy it.

We said coincidentally because this week saw the release of CAPTAIN AMERICA – WINTER SOLDIER on DVD.  Easily our favorite movie of the year and a whopping huge success as the sequel to CAPTAIN AMERICA – THE FIRST AVENGER.  As most of you know, Cap was created during the days of World War II when America was at war with similar barbarians as we face to day.  Artists Jack Kirby and Joe Simon wanted to inspire us with a hero who would reflect our core values, our love of justice and freedom for all men and women.  And so they gave us a hero draped in red, white and blue; Steve Rogers.

When Joe Johnston brought him to life two years ago in that first great movie, he brilliantly retold his origin story and his battle against the Nazis.  Now, with this excellent sequel, we pick up the tale as Steve Rogers is truly a man-out-of-time having to adjust to our new sensibilities and a paranoid world where things are not so much black and white any more, but muddied grays.  Who are our allies for real? And who is the enemy fighting from the shadows.

In WINTER SOLDIER, the Russo brothers stay true to exactly who Captain America, showing us that his old fashion values have never gone out of of style, but merely been forgotten.  But when it comes time to fight, Cap is once again willing to sacrifice all for this great country of ours.  Chris Evans is remarkable as  Steve Rogers and Cap, aptly supported by Anthony Mackie as his new ally, the Falcon and Sebastian Shaw as his old friend turned adversary.  We get lots more of the Black Widow – Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L.Jackson is great as ever as Nick Fury, head of SHIELD.  What makes the film work is its deft blend of both drama and action, each coming in equally does throughout and creating a fantastic thriller for our times.  Proving that such a character can be a hero in both the past and the present.

If you haven't seen it yet, do so.  We think you'll agree with us it is a cinematic winner from start to finish.

And although there is no “real” Captain America in these troubled times post-9/11, his spirit does live in all the brave men and women who continue to serve in our armed forces.  They deserve all our respect and thanks…and prayers.

GOD BLESS THEM AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!
Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen and welcome to this week's Flight Log.  The Air Chief has been very busy lately writing both comics and pulp stories.  Last week we wrapped up our latest piece of prose fiction, a Ravenwood Stepson of Mystery adventured called “Jazzy,” which will appear in our new series. OCCULT DETECTIVES.   No sooner did we set that aside then we were invited to contribute a new Black Bat tale to a BB anthology in the works over at Moonstone Pulps.  We've done many stories for Joe Gentile, Moonstone's managing editor, including our Avenger story, “Vengeance Is Mine,” which won us our first Pulp Factory Award.  So it is always a pleasure to work for Moonstone. 

Whereas back at Airship 27 Productions we've got lots of new books in works including a brand new, full length western novel by popular writer, R.A. Jones.  Jones' last book for us was the Indian fantasy adventure, “Deathwalker.”   Now he's turning his talents to doing a straight out, old fashion western to be called, “Gun Glory,” and its hero is a young veteran of the Civil War named Jason Mankiller.  In the book he is known as the Man Who Cries Blood….all because while on a ruckus drinking binge with his fellow soldiers, Mankiller had a tattoo put on his cheek that looks like drops of blood coming from his eyes.

Upon reading/editing the manuscript, we went and recruited the super talented Neil T. Foster to be our interior illustrator for this particular title.  In conferring with Neil, we suggested he model the character of Jason Mankiller after the actor, and one of our favorites, Clint Walker.  We grew up watching CHEYENNE every week.   Neil went to work and a few days later send us these model sheets to approve.  We were totally bowled over and gave him the green light to proceed.  At present he is hard at work on the actual nine illustrations that will appear in the published book.  Stay tuned, we'll, as ever, keep you posted.

And for all you Mr. Jigsaw fans out there, we are finally putting together issue # 13 of his magazine, MR. JIGSAW Man of a Thousand Parts.   Above is a sneak-peek at the cover by artist Gary Kato. Which also highlights the fact that guest-starring in this issue is Liberty Belle, a character created by the legendary Steve Ditko long-long ago for Charlton Comics.  She only appeared in one story and then was never seen again…until now.  Note, this 16 paged will also be featured in publisher Mort Todd's new CHARLTON ACTION book…and in full color there.  Again, Loyal Airmen, we will keep you posted.

Meanwhile the Air Chief is currently wrapping up a new comic project for Moonstone Comics called, “Guns of the Black Bat,” combining our loves for both comics and pulps.  This one has tons of classic pulp heroes all coming together for a world-spanning adventure.  We think you are going to love it.

And that wraps us up for another week, Loyal Airmen.  As ever, thanks for dropping up. See you back here in a week.
Ron – Over & Out!!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, and here we are with another Flight Log filled with all kinds of odds and ends. Ever since coming home from this year's Pulp Fest, we've been trying to play catch up and keep you all posted on what we have going on in both the pulp and comic fields.  But first we want to discuss a couple of TV series we've truly been enjoying lately.

BBC America just finished airing THE MUSKETEERS, and wonderful retelling of Alexander Dumas' classic adventure novel, THE THREE MUSKETEERS.  Always one of the Air Chief's favorite classics, we enjoyed lots of film adaptations over the years and were happily delighted at just how well this series was done.  The stories to find their inspirations in Dumas' original but having the luxury of many hours, the writers have added lots more depth and characterization.  It also doesn't hurt that the cast is great.  Artos (Tom Burke) d'Artagnan (Luke Pasqualino) Portos (Howard Charles) and Aramis (Santiago Cabrera) are all spot on with their roles.  And kudos to BBC America for casting a mulatto in the role of Portos, paying tribute to Dumas who was himself of mixed ancestry.  And of course we be remiss if we didn't mention Peter Capaldi (the new Dr. Who) as the villainous Cardinal Richelieu.  The first season just wrapped last week and if you haven't seen it, cheer up as it has just been released on DVD (see cover above) and a most reasonable price. The Air Chief loves the series that much that we picked this up today and plan on watching it all over again.  Of course it is fun to hear what are classic French characters speaking British English, but that is easily forgotten as each tale unfolds.

Speaking of French history, the Air Chief has been enjoying the show WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, produced by Ancestry.com wherein famous celebrities try to search their own family trees in order to uncover their lineage.  The series has been on for several years and is truly fascination.  As for the Air Chief, both my parents were of French Canadian heritage.  My grandfather, John Baptiste Fortier move to Southern New Hampshire when he was 13 years old, from Quebec.  His father was Pierre Fortier. We've often wondered what prompted them to make such a radical exodus from their homeland.  My mother's maiden name was Richer, her father was Donat Richer and his family settled in the nearby town of Sanford, Maine.  Growing up, we spoke both French and English, though we are sad to say we've forgotten most of our French over the years.  Mom once told us that her father was embarrassed as a child growing up in Quebec because his mother did not speak French.  We then learned that her maiden was Hamlin and her people had migrated to Canada from England.  We've never really sat down to explore our ancestry but several years ago our oldest son, Scott, found a Fortier Association headquartered in Canada and there a family coat-of-arms.  According the records of this organization, the first Fortier to travel from France to Canada was one Antoine Fortier, a master shipbuilder, ergo the sailing ship at the bottom of the crest.  He was supposedly from Normandy, represented by the twin lions and settled in an area of Canada known for fertile soil good for planting fruit.  Finally the parapets represent the name's translation, Fortier meaning someone who works in a Fort…someone strong.  One of these days, the Air Chief is going to have to explore this in a whole lot more detail.  Right now, we love to have this coat-of-arms sculpture in wood. Would look very cool hanging up in our office, don't you think?

As we stated at the start of this Flight Log, we've been keeping busy and are happy to finally announce the availability of our two latest comic projects from Redbud Studio.  PARADISE FALLS is the first issue of a sci-fi thriller. It's a crime story told in a futuristic city and was written by yours truly with art by John D. Williams and lettering by Warren Montgomery.  Warren also did a great job in coloring the cover; the book is in black and white and we had a lot of fun putting it together.  The second release is our very first full color comic book from Redbud Studio and it is based on a little pulp hero from the 1930s, I.V. Frost a character created by pulp writer Donald Wandrei who penned 18 Frost short stories for CLUE magazine.  Frost was a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Mike Hammer, a scientific detective not afraid to get his hands dirty.  He was accompanied by the smart and sexy Jean Moray.  This one shot comic features two complete stories by me again, art and lettering by Gary Kato, the cover art was by Jake Minor and all coloring to include the marvelous interior pages was by Casey Beamis.  Both books were edited by Rob Davis and can be purchased on-line from (www.IndyPlanet.com)  We truly hope you'll give them a look see.

                             
                                  RAVENWOOD – Stepson of Mystery

And finally to close things up this week we thought we'd let you know what the Air Chief has been working on his coming back to Hangar 27.  Later this year Airship 27 Productions will be releasing a new anthology called THE OCCULT DETECTIVES and it will feature four stories all starring occult detectives.  On board are writers Joel Jenkins, Joshua Reynolds, Jim Beard and the Air Chief.  Yup, we are putting the finishing touches on a brand new Ravenwood – Stepson of Mystery.  After publishing two anthologies starring this very cool pulp hero, we just couldn't turn down the chance to write him and his supporting characters just one time.  The story is called JAZZY and that's all we'll say for now.  But it is a really special project for us on a personal level which will become quite clear when the book is released.  Stay tuned, we'll certainly keep you all posted.

And there you go, another week done and into the Labor Day Weekend.  The end of Summer is only weeks away.  Enjoy the holiday weekend, have fun, be careful on the roads and see you back here next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, and welcome to this week's Flight Log.  This week we are thrilled to announce the release of the first new Mr. Jigsaw comic strip in well over thirty years ago.

The CHARLTON ARROW # 2 published by Mort Todd of Maine is a book devoted to that great little comic company from Derby Conn. where so many of us got our start.  The origin of Mr.Jigsaw by the Air Chief and artist Gary Kato was our second sale to Charlton and appeared as the cover story to SCARY TALES # 38, in full color.  Since then, all his subsequent appearances have been in black and white.  Ergo our excitement of seeing him in color again.

And here's we are holding the book open to that special new Jiggy story.  We truly hope all our Mr. Jigsaw fans will pick up at copy.  It is available at (www.IndyPlanet.com) and thanks again to editor/publisher Mort Todd, who by the way, also was the colorist.  He did such an amazing job, both the Air Chief and Gary were thrilled.  Oh, and as a tease, we are right now doing a new Mr. Jigsaw story for Todd's newest title CHARLTON ACTION coming out soon.  Of course all these tales will be featured still in our regular Mr. Jigsaw black and white series as well.

Sticking with our comics, almost ten years ago artist Rob Davis and the Air Chief created the adult horror graphic novel, DAUGHTER OF DRACULA and have kept it print ever since.  It continues to sell for us as its audience grows by word of mouth. Recently we sold lots of copies at Pulp Fest in Columbus.  Enough so that we thought it was time to do up a brand new edition and make available for the very first time from Amazon.  And that's what we did.  Above are the covers for the new Amazon edition, note we also lowered the old price on the book.  Again, please, this is an ADULT graphic novel, not for little ones. It tells the highly charged love story between Marya, the Daughter of Dracula and Manfred von Richthofen, the famous German Ace known as the Red Baron during World War One.  If you've never read it, we hope you'll try this brand new edition.  As ever, thanks for your continued support.

And finally we end this week's Flight Log with some truly exciting news concerning the PULP FACTORY AWARDS.  These awards are handed by the Yahoo Group Pulp Factory, made up of new pulp fans, writers, artists and editors and presented each year at the Windy City Pulp & Paper Show.  For the past five years the PFAs only covered three categories; Best Pulp Novel, Best Pulp Short Story, Best Pulp Cover & Best Interior Illustrations.  This year the group has okayed a fourth award (see one of the past statues above) in BEST PULP COLLECTION.  This will cover both anthologies, as written by multiple writers and single author collections.  If a traditional anthology wins, the award will go to the editor, if it is a single author collection, then of course the award goes to that writer.  We ere extremely excited about this as the PFAs have become a huge part of the New Pulp Community in helping to make the work of New Pulp writers and artists better recognized throughout the world.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen, as we move closer to Labor Day and the end of summer.   Schools are open once again here in Colorado and seeing children of all ages rushing about every morning has been a pleasant reminder that Fall is on the way.  Our good luck to all of you with kids in school, or even if its you that is still a student.  We hope the coming semester is both enjoyable and positive.

Ron – Over & Out!
                       

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we are back home to Hangar 27 after a hugely successful trip to Columbus, Ohio last weekend and the fun we had at Pulp Fest 2014.  We saw so many old friends, colleagues etc. and happily made lots of new ones.  The Air Chief realizes many of you have never been to a pulp con and so for this Flight Log we thought a few of the pictures we took and allow you all to get some small idea of how much these shows truly are.  Above is the back wall to the main hustlers room where thousands upon thousands of old and new pulps were on sale.  The last two table in the row above…is none other than  those of Airship 27 Productions and you can just make out Art Director Rob Davis seated there.

And here's an up front shot of Rob and ye old Air Chief himself.  We had lots of banners and displays but of course the real gems were our amazing pulp titles on the tables before.  As ever our loyal fans were thrilled by our new titles and we sold lots and lots of books.

Here's another of the hustler's floor as taken from the balcony on the second floor.  So many great vendors with so much cool stuff.  You just couldn't see it all in just a few days.  The Air Chief picked up a few new pulps he has been wanting for some time now and lucked out in finding an old G-8 & His Battle Aces comic book from 1960.

As we mentioned above many of our writing colleagues stopped by including our pals, the Three Pulp Musketeers (left to right) Rick Lai, Frank Schildiner and Jim Beard – with the Green Hornet plastic ring.

Writer Bob Craig stopped by to visit, a truly wild and wacky guy.  Rob's first pulp story was published this year in our GREEN LAMA – MYSTIC WARRIOR which Bob proudly displays here.  One of his next projects for us will be a brand new GEORGE CHANCE – THE GREEN GHOST tale.  He must really love that color.  Ha.

And here we have writers and vendors, Ralph Angelo and David White.  David is an old pro at these shows whereas this was Ralph's first time as a writer.  And justifiably so as he won this year's New Pulp Award for Best New Writer.  Both were laughing merrily every time we passed their table.

One of the real joys of attending this show every year is that our old buddy, comics writer Tony Isabella always makes it a point to stop by and visit with us.  You'll excuse the blurry photo, the Air Chief isn't the best cameraman.  But we trust you can see his Church of Godzilla on his way cool Tee-shirt.   We're excited that Tony will one day be writing books for Airship 27.  More on that as it develops.

Here's writer, pulp fan David Walker with the Air Chief, call us the boys in blue. And look closely, David is wearing a custom made Captain Midnight short as he had written a Captain Midnight story for one of our past LANCE STAR – SKY RANGER anthologies.  David is now working on a full length Captain Midnight novel for us.

One of the real highlights of PULP FEST every year are the author readings and here we have Frank Schildiner doing a reading from one of his many published workds.

And here we have the Air Chief with pal Ray Riethmeier.  Ray is one of quality proof-readers for our books and is wearing his amazing Captain Ron tee-shirt.  We get a big chuckle every time we see him wearing it.  The shirt was designed for my appearances on the Zone 4 podcast.

Finally, my personal favorite moment at PULP FEST every year happens when we have the honor and fun of moderating the New Pulp Panel which takes place on Saturday afternoon and is always made up of today's finest new pulp writers.  This year, joining me in a super discussion of “The Fun of Writing Pulp Fiction” were (left to right) Dr. Art Sippo, Ralph Angelo, Wayne Reinagel, Frank Schildiner & Jim Beard.  They were all fantastic and our audience truly appreciated their sharing their writing insights.

And there you have it, Loyal Airmen, a small encapsulation of our great three days at this year's Pulp Fest.  We hope you liked seeing the pictures and that they make you envious.  Maybe next year you can save up those pennies and come join us.  We'd love to have you join in the fun.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen.  As we promised you last week, this week's entry would be a few days early as by the time most of you read this, the Air Chief and his partner, Rob Davis will be in Columbus, Ohio attending this year's Pulp Fest…and having a blast.  But before we head out, we managed to produced and release our 18th title of the year.  It's a weird western written by Fred Adams Jr. with cover and interior illustrations by Zachary Brunner, two of the most creative people we've ever had the pleasure of working with. To that end we'd like to show you just how the cover for this book came about, step by step.

Whereas the story combines elements of horror with the western genre, we certainly wanted both aspects to be visible on our cover.  There is a scene in the book where we learn the main villain has been possessed by a demonic entity that hides in his body and in one particularly gruesome scene, appears as tentacles coming out of his stomach.  Okay, so we had the idea of showing this with our bad guy standing in the middle of a typical, classic, dusty western town.   The Air Chief then scoured the internet for the appropriate elements that would make up this composition.  Needing a tough looking cowboy with his gun drawn, we found just the right image on an old paperback cover.  See above.

Next we had to find just the right background scene and began looking at western towns until we found one that was right for our idea.  We liked the brown and yellow hues and imagined what it would be like with our evil gunfighter standing dead center in front of this setting.

Then it was time to find just the right, oozing, twisting, awful looking tentacles and our search turned up the above image.  Of course we knew it would eventually be colored…but we liked how each strand twisted around like the living thing it is suppose to represent.  So we then send all these three pictures to our super talented Art Director, Rob Davis and gave him the task of combining them to create our desired cover image.

Of course we knew Rob would come through for us like he always does.  When seeing the above photo-shop picture, we thrilled as we now knew we were on the right track.  The only thing that would need to be adjusted in this composite would be to shrink the tentacles….these here were too large and covered too much of the cowboy.  So it was time to send this off to cover painter Zachary Brunner…and explain what we required.  Please keep in mind, we were not asking Zach to “copy” this, but rather do a painting inspired by it.

A few days later Zach sent in the above sketch to see if he was on the right track.  Both Rob and the Air Chief were thrilled.  We discussed the color palette we wanted Zach to use, to be sure we got those yellows and browns for the down and the sky needed to be a very bright, clear blue.  We also suggested giving the tentacles a sickly green hue and adding red to the cowboy's eyes…to make him truly horrific. Then we sat back and waited for Zach to do his magic.

And here is Zachary Brunner's amazing rendition ….completed.  Honestly, he surpassed all our expectations with this piece.  It is totally what we had envisioned…and more.  Zach is one of the most talented and generous artist we have ever had the pleasure of working with and we hope to continue doing so for a long, long time.

Then Rob did his design magic, adding the title, whose colors work to balance the entire piece, the font is also perfect …along with the author's name and our Airship 27 logo…and voila, we have the 18th Airship 27 Productions title of the year.  Having posted the cover all over the internet this morning to announce its release, we've already started getting many wonderful comments of praise for the cover.  And so decided to give all you Loyal Airmen a behind-the-scene look at how these amazing covers come together.
SIX-GUN TERRORS by Fred Adams, Jr is now on sale at Amazon in hard copy and within a few days will be available on Kindle.  We hope you'll check it out.

And there you go, Loyal Airmen.  We're off to PULP FEST.  See you next week.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we are sure most of you who visit this Flight Log know what diehard Red Sox fans we are here at Airship 27 HQ.  But one of the things we've learned over the years is just how hard it is to win a World Series Championship at the end of a grueling season, unlike any other in sports.  In 2012 the Red Sox suffered one of their most humiliating seasons ever under the awful leadership of Billy Valentine. Things were shaken up at the end of that year, a new general manager in Ben Cherington was broad on board and he immediately hired John Farrell as the new Manager.  New pieces were added to the team and along came 2013, which all sportscasters predicted with we a so-so rebuilding season.  Yeah, right.  The team expected to simply break even won it all in one of the most amazing seasons in all of Red Sox history.  So 2013 ends and as ever, management loses some of their key players.  But not so much that it should adversely affect the chemistry of the team, right?  Wrong.  Whatever that unknown element is that bands a group of 25 men together to win a World Series, when you take out even one or two of these players you change the recipe and that, like this year, can prove to be disastrous.  Lo and behold, today the Red Sox, holding firm to the last place in their division, began trading off the best of their roster, especially in the pitching pen in the hopes of gaining what has been critically missing this year; consistent good pitching and hard hitting bats.  Within the last week they've let go of Jake Peavy (to the Padres), Felix Doubront (to the Cubs), Jon Lester (to Oakland A's), John Lackey (to the Cardinals), all starters at the beginning of the year and Andrew Miller (to the Orioles), a left handed reliever at the same time also swapping out utility player Jonny Gomes (to Oaklland) and short-stop Stephen Drew (to the Yankees).  For all this, they in turn got one of the best sluggers in all of baseball today, Yeonis Cespedes and at least 8 of the top young pitching prospects in the minor leagues.

What a difference a year does make.  Reading expert analysis throughout the day, it is clear baseball watchers think these moves were all smart and will help the Sox put together a powerful new team come April 2015.  But it sure will be a new team filled with lots of new faces.  That's the way the baseball roller-coaster goes, up one year and down the next.  Here's hoping 2015 the ride goes up again.

To moving on to other fun topic, one of our favorite sci-fi TV shows on the air these days is BBC America's amazing ORPHAN BLACK.   Last weekend at the huge San Diego Comic Con, it was revealed that IDW Comics is soon going to be publishing an Orphan Black comic book series and they revealed the cover art for the first series.  Imagine our surprise when we saw that it has been beautifully painted by our very good friend, artist Nick Runge.  Nick is one of the finest talents in commercial art today and he recently packed his bags and moved from San Diego to Los Angeles.  Look at that cover above closely and tell the Air Chief this fellow shouldn't be doing movie posters.  We wish Nick all the luck in the world and for sure, we're going to be picking up this comic when it comes out.

On the movie scene, we've been huge fans of French writer-director Luc Besson for many years and this past week went to see his latest, a sci-fi thriller called LUCY starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman.  It takes its central plot from old notion that we human only used 10% of our brain's capacity. This theory had been suddenly debunked in recent years but hey, this isn't a biography, it's sci-fi and if you can believe a kid bitten by radioactive spider can then climbs walls, then sit back and enjoy a really well made suspense story about an innocent girl who has evolution forced upon her by a gang of criminals who cut her open and put a new experimental drug in her stomach.  When the bag accidentally ruptures, the chemicals begin to affect Lucy's brain, making it work evolve and thus giving her strange and alarming abilities.  Normally Besson's movies are all about the action, but that is not the case here and the appeal of this movie is watching how Lucy slowly begins to change and the apprehension at what she is becoming is the crux of the tale.  Kudos for Johnsson for making us believe this metamorphosis and as ever, Morgan Freeman, given very little to do here except explain the science metaphysics, does so brilliantly.  We think if he read the telephone book, he'd win an Oscar.  Anyway, if you'd like to see a very good, short and entertaining flick, we give LUCY two major thumbs up.

Next up our newest pulp adventure from Airship 27 Productions is now on-sale at Amazon.com
CHALLENGER STORM # 2 CURSE OF POSEIDON by Don Gates with art by the great Michael Kaluta is an action packed sequel to the first Challenger Storm book we released a little over a year ago.  Gates packs old fashion pulp thrills on every page.  And we are thrilled to have it out now. We will have copies at this year's Pulp Fest.  Speaking of whick….

Finally we'd like to remind all you Loyal Airmen one last time that Pulp Fest coming fast. In fact this time next week, the Air Chief and his partner, Rob Davis, will be in Columbus, Ohio manning our two Airship 27 tables stacked high with all our latest pulp novels and anthologies.  The show looks to be bigger and better this year and we truly hope to see many of you there again this year.  Okay, back to packing.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal airmen and welcome back for this week's Flight Log.  Summer is really whipping past us August is just around the corner and lots of colleges across the country are getting ready for their Fall semesters.  Here in Fort Collins, we continue to bear up under unusually hot temperatures, really out of the ordinary for this locale.  Since moving here almost four years ago, the Air Chief has really enjoyed the camaraderie of fellow comic creators.  Enough so that we formed our own little social club if you will calling ourselves the FORT COLLINS COMICS COFFEE CLUTCH CREW and the first Sat of every month we meet at a local restaurant for breakfast.

As most of you will recall, last two weeks ago we were back east in New Hampshire for a family gathering.  Upon returning to Fort Collins, the Air Chief received an e-mail from one of our comic group asking if, “…because of the crash…” we would still be meeting at our usual place come 2nd Aug.  Crash?  “Crash? What crash?” we asked our friend.  Well, it seems that during our travels, an elderly gentlemen drove his car through the restaurant's front plate glass window. See picture above, which we just found on the internet a few days ago.  Ouch.  Happily no one was hurt, though we'd imagine a few of the patrons were a bit shaken. And we are happy to report the damage has been repaired the establishment if again fully functional and open for business.  So next Sat. morning the Air Chief and 20 of his best friends will once again be gathering for eggs, bacon, bagels and great conversations.

One of those topics we plan to share with our friends is a new book we just finished reading yesterday; RAGTIME COWBOYS by Loren D. Estleman.  Although we do plan on writing up a full review for our Pulp Fiction Review blog and posted it all over the internet, we thought we'd give you Loyal Airmen a heads up here in this log.  Estleman is an award winning author of both westerns and mysteries and the fun of this book its plot in which an aging Wyatt Earp hires Charlie Siringo, another popular figure of the Old West, to find a prize horse stolen from his ranch.  To do so Siringo travels to San Francisco and there teams up with a young, ex-Pinkerton detective named Dashiell Hammett.  The Air Chief absolutely loved this book and devoured it in two days.  If like us you enjoy history and that old “what if” so and so had met kind of plot, RAGTIME COWBOYS is a book you really should check out.

And lastly, we are happy to report that Airship 27 Productions has released its 15th title of the year, SINBAD – The New Voyages.  This is the third in this series of new Sinbad adventures and the first ever full length novel, as written by C.B. Harvey with cover art and interior illustrations by James Conahan. It is a grand fantasy adventure in the vein of the late Ray Harryhausen.  This is quickly becoming one of our most popular series and you can pick it up at Amazon.com in both hard copy and on Kindle. As ever, thank you so much for your continued support.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  The Air Chief is only a few weeks away from flying off to this year's Pulp Fest in Columbus, Ohio.  Hope to see many of you there as always. Till then take care.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, well, we had to make an unexpected trip back to New Hampshire for a family funeral last week thus the skipped Flight Log last week.  Such events are always sad and difficult to deal with emotionally, but as Christians, we also take great comfort in the gathering of family and friends who come to share their memories of the departed.  Once those obligations were behind us, Valerie and the Air Chief took the opportunity to visit those special family members so dear to us…starting with my mother, Gabrielle “Gaby” Fortier.  That's the two of us above.  Mom will be turning 90 on Nov. 1st and is doing remarkably well.  She had a rough start to her year, having fallen just before Christmas and having had to have a new hip put in.  And yet, she endured all that suffering and pain, went through the rehab and is doing better than ever.  It was so wonderful to see her up and about and happy again.

Another trip was to visit my uncle Bob Fortier.  Our dad was one of six boys and Uncle Bob is the only still with us.  He's 88 now and still finds time, when up from Florida, to help his son, Bobby, with the fuel company he started lo those many years ago after he came home from the Korean conflict.  Fortier & Sons is still a big part of the community in my hometown of Somersworth, NH.  Uncle Bob was surprised to see us and didn't waste a second into launching into new jokes he'd heard.  He's a remarkable man with a heart of gold.  He and my late Aunt Lorette, had three children, Joan, Bob Jr. and Luanne.  Seen above are cousing Bobby, Uncle Bob Fortier and the Air Chief.  We were blessed with such a great family and we were so glad to be able to fit this short visit in.

Once back at the old Hangar 27 HQ, it was time to get busy again with all our various projects, both pulps and comics.  We love nothing better than combining the two fields and have done so with our latest comic book release from Redbud Studio – I.V. FROST – Scientific Detective.   Frost was an actual pulp character created and written by Donald Wandrai.  He wrote 18 Frost mysteries and all of them appeared in CLUE magazine.   Our comic features two brand new stories by the Air Chief with art by Gary Kato. The cover is by artist Jake Minor.  And the most important note of all, this is Redbud Studio's first ever full color comic, those magnificent hues provided by colorist Casey Beamis.  If all goes well, this comic will be available for sale at (www.IndyPlanet.com) by Aug 1st and publisher Rob Davis and the Air Chief will have copies on hand at our Airship 27 Productions tables at this year's Pulp Fest in Columbus, August 7th to 9th.  So be sure to stop by and grab a copy.  We think you'll like this comic version of a classic pulp hero.

And finally, for the past year and a half we've slowly been getting all our pulp titles up on Amazon's Kindle digitally.  Of the six SHERLOCK HOLMES – CONSULTING DETECTIVE books we'd put out, only Volume III had yet to be put up on Kindle.  Well, as of today, it is there available for all you E-readers and we are thrilled to offer it to you in this format, along with our usual hard copies as well.
And stay tuned, Volume VII is now in the works and should be coming your way by the first of 2015.
These Sherlock Holmes anthologies continue to be our best selling series ever.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  As ever thanks so much for stopping by.
See you back here next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!

    
Happy 4th of July, Loyal Airmen!!!  What a glorious day when we stop to celebrate the greatest country in the world, the greatest freedom loving country in the history of mankind.  A land of freedoms, each paid for by the blood and sweat of its citizen founders, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal and in this land, if you work hard and never give up, you will win out and become a success, regardless of your origins, race, sex or religion.  I LOVE AMERICA!!!  And all her men and women in the military who fought and died to make certain her shining light would never diminish, that she would forever remain a beacon of hope to those people still living under oppression dreaming of a better life.  God bless America!!!  Amen.

And a special thanks to artist Michael Kaluta for that gorgeous artwork above.  Like the Air Chief, Michael has a real fondness for aircrafts of all models and this illustration is perfect for today.

Early next week, Valerie and the Air Chief, will once again be flying back to New Hampshire, once again to visit friends and relatives. This was an unexpected trip, but one we're only too happy to take advantage of.  Whereas, we'll be gone an entire week, there will be no Flight Log next Friday, the 11th.  But long before then, our newest Airship 27 Productions pulp title will have been released.  So, even though we do not like to show off our books until they are actually on sale at Amazon, this week, again, because it is America's birthday, we're going to give all you Loyal Airmen a present.  A peek at the cover of our newest offering.

HITWOLF is a full length novel by writer Fred Adams, Jr. and our fourteenth release of the year.  In the mid 1970s, a vicious New Jersey gang boss wants to eliminate the other mobs in his area.  He teams up with an occult expert who has the ability to make men into werewolves.  To prove this, the mob boss has an ex-Green Beret home from Vietnam kidnapped and turned into such a monster.  The thing is, the occult dude has a special amulet that allows him to control the werewolf and they begin to use him to kill rival gang bosses.   Until….the Green Beret manages a way to overcome the power of the amulet and escapes!
And that's the gist of the plot for one of the coolest books the Air Chief has ever had the fun of reading.
Fred Adams Jr. is one hell of a writer.  The book has nine interior illustrations by Clayton Hinkle and a fantastic cover (see above) by Ingrid Hardy.  It should be available in hard copy at Amazon by July7th, this coming Monday, and then on Kindle a few days later.  Please do check it out, its something totally new and original.

And there you have it Loyal Airmen.  We hope you have an awesome holiday weekend and we'll see you back her in two weeks time.  Take care and God Bless…

Ron – Over & Out!