Greeting Loyal Airmen, we've got some truly exciting news to pass along this morning, so let's jump right into this week's Flight Log.

Almost four years ago Valerie and the Air Chief moved here to beautiful, Fort Collins, Colorado.  Nestled at the base of the front range of the majestic Rocky Mountains, Fort Collins is a great city to live and home of Colorado State University CSU.  To say we have loved living here these past four years would be a huge understatement.  Our new home is simply awesome.

Shortly after moving here, the Air Chief learned, via a local comic shop. that there were many comic book professionals who resided here in the Fort, amongst them double Eisner Winner Mike Baron.  Sure enough, shortly thereafter we heard from Mike and got together with him.  Through Mike and the good people at the comic shop, we soon met lots of these great “comic book” people.  So much so that the Air Chief had the idea of all of us getting together the first Sat of every month to have breakfast at a local eatery and thus we became the – FORT COLLINS COMICS COFFEE CLUTCH CREW.   And if you think that's a mouthful, be aware we even have our own Facebook page under that title.  No lie.

Anyway, we've now been meeting regularly for over three years and the group is almost twenty strong, made up of writers and artists, men and women, professionals and amateurs, all with a love of graphic storytelling.  One of the reoccurring topics at our month gatherings has been, “Why doesn't Fort Collins have its on comic show?”  Considering the size of the community, layout etc. we all have believed it would be an ideal location for such an event.  Well, after three years of wishing and hoping…it is going to happen.  Yes, indeed.  Recently one of our gang was contacted by a senior at CSU who informed him that they, CSU, are wanting to put on a one day comic show here in Fort Collins and would our group be willing to help out?  Talk about your silly question.  Ha.

Last week four of us from the Comics Coffee Clutch Crew met with CSU organizer, Ben Mueller to discuss and plan out this exciting one day show.  It was a great meeting, many of our crew will be guests at the show and we are all now starting up the promotion-machine to start spreading the word about —
 
THE FOCO COMIC & GAMING FESTIVAL
SAT.  19th  APRIL 2014
THE DRAKE CENTER
At the corner of Drake & Shields
BETWEEN  11 a.m & 5 p.m.

There will be sixteen comic book guests, gaming tournaments, dozens of comic vendors and a costume contest.  Note, these are just a few of the things locked in.  Ben and his staff are still developing other fun ideas for the event. And the Air Chief will be posting them here as the process continues.  We are wicked, WICKED EXCITED about finally having a comic event here in the Fort.  Wish us luck and if you are anywhere near lovely Fort Collins during this date, do make plans to come and join the fun.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen and a Happy Valentine's day to all of you.  Having this holiday fall on a Friday, we thought it only fitting we celebrate this day devoted to romance in our own unique, Airship 27 style, thanks in great part to our dear friend, Canadian artist, Olivier Raymond.

And to that end here is a VERY SPECIAL postcard from none other than Captain Hazzard – Champion of Justice.
                               

Now just how cool is that.  Thank you so much, Olivier, from both the Air Chief and the love of our life, Valerie.  And again, we wish you…and ALL our Loyal Airmen and their mates in this life, a truly special HAPPY VALENTINE!!!

Moving right along, for those of you who faithfully follow this Log every week, you'll remember that a few short weeks ago we wrote a particularly mean rant against Licensors and how they are forever screwing over creative people.  Well, the reasoning behind that entry was we had just learned that the Licensor of the Spider had opted cancel Moonstone Comics permission to use this classic pulp character right smack in the middle of our producing the new black and white SPIDER – DOMINO LADY comic series.  Needless to say all of involved were both surprised and then justifiably angry with this stupid action on their part. Still it left us with the question as to how to proceed.  Or should we?  Happily, in the end, the Air Chief, Moonstone's Managing Editor and artist Michael Dorman all agreed to save the project by swapping out the Spider for another classic pulp hero who is 100% public domain.  Meaning we don't have to kowtow to any idiotic licensors and can do as we please.

                             
Get ready for THE BLACK BAT – DOMINO LADY comic series!!  Yup, the Air Chief did a little tweaking where necessary and the hooded avenger of the classic pulps is once again on the trail of evil doers.  Note, the page above by Michael and you'll see we are doing the original costume as was described in the actual Black Bat stories…and not the Batman-like cowl that was splashed on the covers and has been adopted by other comic companies.  Nope, we wanted to give you fans the real-deal here. We are excited by Michael's' art as ever and can't wait to see this project move forward. Stay tuned for progress updates as we move along with it.

Finally, last May, the Air Chief and Art Director Rob Davis traveled to Norman, OK where we were guest of the Oklahoma Fiction Writers' Conference.  We put on several presentations on How To Make A Graphic Novel and had a great time while meeting so many talented writers.  One of these was Peggy Chambers.  After the show, Peggy began submitting ideas for books to Airship 27 Productions and one of them struck a chord the Air Chief, it was a wonky idea about two single girls who survive an end of civilization scenario and still manage to do what hip-single girls do.  It reminded us of Thelma and Louise meet The Last Man on Earth.  We accepted it for publication and it was released a few days ago.  It features a fantastic cover by Andy Fish with interiors by Zachary Brunner.  The book is on sale at Amazon in both hard copy and on their Kindle e-reader.  Trust the Air Chief, you've never read anything quite like this one.

And there you have it Loyal Airmen, a busy week here in old Hangar 27.  Stay warm and remember, Baseball Spring Training begins next week.  Wahooo.

Ron – Over and Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we're once again playing up catch up here as it's Friday morning and we are just now putting this up.  Been week as ever.  The Air Chief is still improving from his recent bout with lower back pain.  A slow process, but a little less pain every day.  Honestly, gravity does suck.  So, what to write about today.  The obvious answer showed up last night.

After twenty-two years as the host of the popular Tonight Show, comedian Jay Leno last night called it quits. And he went the exact way he has conducted himself for two decades, with tons of class.  Valerie and the Air Chief were (and will always remain) huge fans.  We didn't always stay up to watch his entire show, there were guests we simply didn't like, but we would make the effort to watch his monologues and opening comedy skits.  What the Air Chief loved about Jay was that he put it all on the line. He was the every man's comic and you never once got the feeling he was better than you.  He was that guy you looked at as a pal, one you could sit down with and have a beer.  We're going to miss the hell out of you, Jay, thanks for twenty-two amazing year and whatever you do next, sincerely, from Valerie & the Air Chief.  God bless you!

Keeping to the television theme here, one of the new mid-season shows we have come to enjoy every week is the sci-fi cop actioner, ALMOST HUMAN.  Well, imagine the Air Chief's surprise when this past week WMMA pro and movie action queen, the lovely Gina Carano guest starred on the show as a tough-as-nails Terminator-like killing robot.  Wow!!!  She was absolutely fantastic!   The Air Chief raved over her debut starring film feature HAYWIRE and is still most anxious to see this young lady in lots more action movies.

Speaking of lovely brunettes, and segueing back into the writing stuff, the Air Chief recently finished a new collection of Brother Bones pulp stories.  We are now in the process of putting it together as a new Airship 27 Productions title to be called BROTHER BONES – TAPESTRY OF BLOOD.  In the collection, we once again set forth new adventures of the Undead Avenger as he battles all kinds of supernatural menaces that threaten his home of Cape Noire.  Amongst the citizens of this dark metropolis is a young lady named Paula Wozcheski.  She first appeared in the first Bones collection and recently made a brief appearance in the Bones novel, SIX DAYS OF THE DRAGON by Roman Leary.  Well, as often happens, this particular character seemed to take on a unique life of her own as we kept writing and through no actual pre-plan, she has evolved into a major player in the series.  We don't want to spoil the fun of all this, but super artist Pat Carabjal is now working on the cover and this past week send along a half dozen sketches of Brother Bones and several of Paula in her new persona.  Believe me, we are keep those chosen for the cover tightly under wraps, but above is one of the discarded poses as a sneak-peek gift.  Stay tuned for more.

And finally, the Winter Olympics have begun in Sochi, Russia.  We send our best wishes to the American Team and all the athletes from around the world who have come together to compete in friendly competition.  The Olympics remain a constant,  positive example of how the world SHOULD be. 

Thanks for stopping by, stay warm and we'll see you back here in seven days.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, this week's topic ( or rant if you will ) is centered around the Air Chief's past experiences with those people who own the rights to certain fictional properties and how most of them are Class A jerks who do nothing but cause grief and headaches for the very creative people trying to make them money.

Many, many years ago, the Air Chief was hired by a small time independent black and white comics publisher to do a five issue mini-series based on a very popular fictional movie action hero.  Being a Vietnam veteran, we jumped at the chance of writing this character's future exploits but at the same time saw the potential to round out the hero and go beyond just the “grunts” he would utter in the movies; to flesh out his background, show how he became this exemplary fighting patriot who lived only to served his country and his fellow warriors.

We wrote the entire series and our editor loved what we had done.  They assigned the scripts to an up and coming young artist and we were off to the races.  Several months later my editor called to say we had hit a speed-bump.  Apparently the licensors of the property, after reading my scripts, were not at all happy with our approach, complaining they only wanted to see endless action without any character development scenes at all.  Ergo, the publisher, having no choice, had the editor cut out everything we written in the first two chapters except the action pieces and put them together into book # 1 and release it.  Well, naturally it then made no sense at all, the book bombed and the series canceled.  Trust me, considering how they had butchered our story, we were not sad to see this die on the vine.  Thanks for nothing, licensors.

Of course we never -ever get rid of any story we've ever put to paper and for nearly thirty years all five of those scripts sat in our files just awaiting the right time to roll around when it would be feasible to dust them off and do something with them.  Lo and behold, print-on-demand via the internet has now allowed any creator to become his or her own publisher.  Months ago, while at a local convention, the Air Chief met a retired Army Sergeant, Kevin Johnson and the subject turned to comic book graphics.  A talented artists, Kevin was hoping to get into the field and hoped we might have something for him to sink his creative teeth into.  BINGO!!!  We immediately remembered those scripts based on that former commando and brought them up to Kevin.  We talked about how relatively easy it would be to alter the scripts, modernize the action and create from them a whole new hero no-one had ever seen before.  Someone that we would share complete ownership of from day one.

Meet Richard Lyon, an ex-Navy Seal trying to find his place in the world; a champion to defend the weak and a crusader bring down America's terrorist foes.  During his service days, his codename was BLACK LION.  The Air Chief has totally re-written this saga as a graphic novel and the team assembled to bring it to you is stellar.  Joining Kevin and the Air Chief are Mark Stegbauer, inker, and T. Warren Montgomery providing letters and colors.  Rob Davis will be the book's editor and it will be released via his indepedent line, REDBUD STUDIO.  Believe me when we say, all of us connected with BLACK LION are really excited about this project and in particular this character.

So it is safe to say, thanks to those idiots licensors who so long ago shot us down, they actually did us a favor because what has risen up from those ashes is something a whole lot more exciting.  Stay tuned, Loyal Airmen.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, today's Flight Log is another late entry.  The reason it is being compiled early this morning is because last evening the Air Chief finished his latest Brother Bones short story.

Since creating the Undead Avenger of the fictional city Cape Noire, this character has taken us on a really wild ride through every possible media imaginable from comics like the one-shot pictured about with stunning art by John Poacek.  Bones would also appear in an 8 pg strip in ALL STAR PULP COMICS # 2 as drawn by Joe Arnold.  Joe and the Air Chief are hoping to do another 8 pager for the third issue now in the works.

Brother Bones has even appeared in audio thanks to the good people at Dynamic Ram Audio with four wonderful short stories taken from the first book collection and superbly read by Mark Kalita.  Note, the remaining stories in that collection will be released soon as audio files, again read by Mark but from another company this time.  Stay tuned for further announcements.

The Undead Avenger has even teamed up with other popular pulp heroes like the Pulptress above in a story called The Butcher's Festival which appeared in her book from Pro Se Productions.  It, and several other Brother Bones adventures that were featured in Pro Se books will be reprinted, along with the new tales, in the next Brother Bones collection.  Again, stay tuned Loyal Airmen.

And last year we Bones chronicled by other talented writers such Roman Leary who penned the first ever full length Brother Bones novel, SIX DAYS OF THE DRAGON.  Barry Reese, a well known new pulp author who had the cast of Brother Bones appear in one of his newest Lazarus Gray tales. That story will be featured in volume five of that series soon to be released from Pro Se Productions.  Trust the Air Chief, you are going to love it.

We haven't even mentioned the wonderful action figure done up by Marshal Collectibles or the fact that we are in talks with a role-playing company interested in doing a Brother Bones game.  Now that would be something to see.  We'll keep our fingers crossed this happens and keep you posted along the way.

And so last night, as we stated above, we wrapped up the newest Bones adventure; a really gruesome, gritty tale and will be part of the new Brother Bones collection which we hope to have out relatively soon.  Most of our Airship 27 contain at least 60,000 words.  At present the new collection has just topped 55,000.  Meaning, the Air Chief needs to get busy and done one more short to get the package completed.

As we said, its been a wild ride and where it will lead, we have no idea.  Really.  The writer's muse, especially when it comes to Undead Avenger, is a fickle thing and we never know where it will lead next.  But none of this would ever have been possible without all your support, Loyal Airmen.  For that we will be eternally grateful.  Hang in there, we've a hunch this ride is just getting into high gear.

Ron Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, our apologies for this late posting.  As many of you know, the Air Chief is a co-host on the comic orientated weekly podcast, ZONE 4.  We record the show on Thursday and then it is posted at the Comic Related website Friday evening.  Well, we had a late hour recording yesterday, which made it impossible for us to get this week's Flight Log written early.  ZONE 4 last week posted its 250th episode and there are tons of changes in the works for the program coming in 2014.  If you've never listened to it before, why not give it try this week.  We have a blast doing it.

As of the 1st of Jan all our older Airship 27 Productions pulp titles were no longer being published by Cornerstone Book Publishers and all rights to these books reverted to the creators.  At which point we are now in the process of putting together new Airship 27 Editions.  One of Art Director Rob Davis' primary goals is to get ALL 76 of our books up at Amazon's Kindle.  Last year saw a very sharp rise in our digital sales and as more and more of our fans get used to downloading their favorite books on these e-readers, we fully expect these kinds of sales to continue to climb.  To that end, Rob kicked off the past week by putting four of our older titles on Kindle. These included the historic DAMBALLA by Charles Saunders, which debut the very first ever black 1930s avenger hero.  Also arriving on Kindle was Don Gates debut of his Challenger Storm character in Isle of Blood with art by Pulp Factor Award winner Michale Kaluta.  Also added to the Kindle roster were MYSTERY MEN (& Women) volumes 1 & 2.  All Loyal Airmen can keep abreast of which old titles are being posted to Kindle by simply visiting our website on a regular basis. Simply click on the dirigible logo to the left of this Flight Log.  Note, all titles from 2013 on have been done via Amazon and so are on Kindle as is our now regular publishing routine.

As all you Loyal Airmen know, Airship 27 Productions has published brand new Sherlock Holmes adventures via our Consulting Detective series for several years now and these are amongst our most popular titles.  Over the course of that time, several of you have asked why the Air Chief has never written a Holmes tale and the honest answer is, we have never felt confident enough to do so.  Writing a traditional Conan Doyle story means mimicking the voice of Dr. Watson in telling the story. Believe us, that is no easy task and one of the reasons we appreciate the talented writers we've worked with who can do this literary trick.  Ergo, we have pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that we would most likely never write a Sherlock Holmes story.

Well, as ever, the adage of “never say never” seems to have nailed us square.  Yesterday the Air Chief received a wonderful invitation to contribute to a new Sherlock Holmes anthology being produced by an Australian writer/editor.  The thing is, this collection will feature alternate world versions of Holmes and the connecting thread is that his sidekick will NOT be Dr. Watson.  In the editor's note was a list of other noted writers who have signed on to this project and some of the historical and fictional characters they have partnered the Great Detective with.  We were really ….really impressed with the list and just like that a very tiny kernel of an idea began to grow in our mind in regards to one particular “doctor” we've always been fascinated with.  So we suggested our concept to this Australian editor and he thought it was solid and encouraged us to go ahead and write it.  Will we?  The deadline is some time in April.  We're currently putting the finishing touches on a new Brother Bones tale and then there's crime anthology Terrence McCauley is edited that we've yet to address.  For the past twenty four hours we've waffled back and forth as to commit or…not?

What do you think?  All comments are most welcome.  As ever thanks for stopping by.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, last week we took a long look back at 2013.  Well, that year is history now and as the new year begins, we set our sights forwards as to what we can expect in the coming months. Airship 27 Productions will once again be making appearances at the Windy City Pulp & Paper Show again this year.  Above is a photo of Art Director Rob Davis and the Air Chief after got set up at last year's show. Note, the people promoting the show are once again supporting the New Pulp Community and yours truly and Tommy Hancock will be setting up all kinds of events to celebrate New Pulp.  So keep tuned to this Flight Log and other postings on Facebook.  Of course our second big pulp show is Pulp Fest, this year at the end of July and once again in Columbus, Ohio.  We truly hope to see lots of our Loyal Airmen at these two shows.  Of course, separately, Rob and the Air Chief will also be appearing at various comic cons etc. throughout the year.

As the Air Chief looks ahead to the next twelve months, we can't help but get exited as we have quite a few things coming out.  Pulp-wise we'll have a story in the new OPERATOR 5 anthology from Moonstone Books which is scheduled for a March release.  We also a full-lenght G8 & His Battle Aces novel for Moonstone but a release date has yet to be set.  Then of course we'll be doing new black and white comic book series THE SPIDER – DOMINO LADY for them with art by Michael Dorman and letters by Brant Fowler.  We've seen half the first issue and it blew us away.

Of course Moonstone isn't the only publisher that we'll have work appearing in.  Van Plexico's WHITE ROCKET BOOKS is doing PRIDE OF THE MOHICANS, an anthology featuring the characters from James Fenimore Cooper's classic LAST OF THE MOHICANS and the Air Chief has a fast pace, outdoor adventure yarn in this collection.   We also have an Athena Voltaire flying adventure coming soon from SEQUENTIAL PULPS, based on creator Steve Bryant's popular pulp character.  And over the Christmas holidays the Air Chief finished a new story called THE WIND-UP KID intended for Russ Anderson's third volume of HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD for PULP WORK PRESS.  As you can see, the Air Chief has lots and lots of cool stuff coming in 2014.

So what about Airship 27 Productions you asked?  Well never fear, we have some truly amazing anthologies and novels headed your way in 2014.  Amongst these are our second Captain Action book, HEARTS OF THE RISING SUN by Jim Beard, its a sequel to RIDDLE OF THE GLOWING MEN (above) and you won't want to miss it.  We've got tons of great new anthologies as well featuring such classic pulp heroes as THE GREEN GHOST, THE PURPLE SCAR and DOMINO LADY to name a few.

Last year we released our second SINBAD – THE NEW VOYAGES anthology (see above) and while we are hard at work on a third such collection, before that sees print we will be publishing our first full length Sinbad novel (SINBAD & THE WARRIORS OF FOREVER) written by C.B. Harvey and its a classic fantasy adventure that will blow you away.  Again just a small sampling of the books we have coming your way.

And books won't be our only offerings in 2014.  We've three new Brother Bones short audio presentations on the way (like the one above) to include the popular GORILLA DREAMS.  Like the first four we produced, these will also be ready by the super talented Mark Kalita.  Our second Captain Hazzard audio book, CITADEL OF FEAR is also in production and should soon be available in another month or so.
Like we said, there's no keeping the old Airship 27 down.  It is going to be a truly awesome year with lots of fun projects and products.  So stay tuned.

And now we end this first Flight Log of 2014 with some OUTSTANDING NEWS.  A few months ago we reported that Marvel Studios was considering developing a television series around Agent Peggy Carter from the CAPTAIN AMERICA movie we loved so much.  Well it has just been announced that this concept has been given the green light due to overwhelming fan response and there IS going to be a Peggy Carter series which will detail how she and others created SHIELD in the years after World War II.
The Air Chief is thrilled beyond words about this news.  We love the current AGENTS OF SHIELDS and this new show is going to be the perfect companion to it. Thank you Marvel Studios for listening to your fans.

And with that we end our first Flight Log of the new year.  Talk about exciting times, oh yeah!
Ron Over & Out!

                  
Greeting Loyal Airmen, well Christmas is behind us and we pray all of you had a wonderful time with friends and family as this Holy time should be spent.  We had some concern as our mother, Gabrielle Fortier, 89 years young, took a bad fall at the Senior Facility where she lives back in New Hampshire and the day before Christmas underwent surgery to put steel pins in her writs and a titanium pin in her fractured hip. Thank God she came through surgery well but now comes the hard part, the physical therapy to regain her mobility. It is going to be a painful but necessary process and we humbly ask your prayers on her behalf.  It seems 2013 was indeed a year of ups and downs, losses and victories.  Realizing this would be our last Flight Log of this memorable year, we decided to take a short look back at some of our own highlights and share them with you.

Airship 27 Productions kicked off its most productive year ever with the release of our fourth SHERLOCK HOLMES – Consulting Detective book.  Always a huge fan favorite, this series would book-end 2013 as our last title released only a few short weeks ago was the fifth volume in this series. In between those two titles, were 15 other pulp anthologies and novels and one 1 children's book (our first ever) for a grand total of 18 Airship 27 titles in one year.  Not bad for a two man operation.  We want to publicly thank our partner and art director, Rob Davis, whose tireless efforts and creative design work make all this possible.  It was a hell of a ride; both physical and creative.

Early in the year, Rob and the Air Chief were invited to Norman, Oklahoma, to be guest of the Oklahoma Fiction Writers Conference, an organization consisting of almost 800 writers.  It was a first time experience for us and there we gave two 90 minute presentations on HOW TO WRITE A GRAPHIC NOVEL.  We used our own DAUGHTER OF DRACULA book as the main feature of our power-point presentation with yours truly discussing the basics of script writing and Rob explaining how a professional graphic artist adapts such a script.  To help get these points across, we also sold copies of both the graphic novel and my script for it (seen above).  It was such an amazing, fun trip for both of us. Sadly, the very area of Oklahoma we were in was hit by those awful tornadoes only two weeks later.

Spring had finally arrived and being diehard Red Sox fans, Valerie and the Air Chief were thrilled to see baseball start up again with a new team.  After the Sox dismal last place showing in 2012, we weren't getting our hopes up too much.  This would clearly be a rebuilding year as all baseball fans believed.  So we started watching the games and keeping our fingers crossed.  Then came the Patriot's Day Boston Marathon bombing which kill and crippled so many innocent, good people as perpetrated by two insane brothers. both avowed Muslim terrorists.  Thanks to the fine efforts of Boston law enforcement, they were captured within days of the incident. It was another reminder that evil does exist in the world and there are fanatics that hate our democracy and freedoms, enough to want to destroy them any way they can. What these zealots don't take into account is the internal and spiritual fortitude of the American people and soon the people of Boston were loudly proclaiming a new motto that would echo all over the country throughout the summer – BOSTON STRONG!

Shortly after all this we were winging our way back to New England to attend the high school graduation of our granddaughter Chelsea.  We were all so proud of her.  This fall she began her college career in Wheelock, a Boston College and is loving it.  Upon getting back to Colorado from this whirlwind visit back east, the Air Chief somehow threw out his lower back and for several weeks was dealing with a very familiar pain. Still we kept up with our own stretching and daily walking routine and got things back to normal finally. In fact just in time before Rob and the Air Chief were to fly to Chicago for the Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention.

We were particularly excited about the fact that for the first time ever we would have a premium to offer all our Loyal Airmen who come out and support us at these conventions; the all cloth Airship 27 patch. We would gave one away freely to anyone who bought two of our books, or they could simply buy a patch for the low fee of $3.  We are happy to report the patches were a huge hit, both at Windy City and later at Pulp Fest.

One of the big highlights of the Windy City convention is the presentations of the Pulp Factory Awards given out Friday night to recognize in the best in New Pulp fiction and artwork from the previous year's publications.  Having won the PF Award for Best Pulp Short Story the previous year, we were stunned to do it again this year for our tale THE GHOUL, which appeared in the Pro Se Productions book MONSTER ACES as created and edited by Jim Beard.  Above is the happy Air Chief with his second PF Award along side the Managing Editor of Pro Se, our good friend Tommy Hancock.  It truly was a remarkable time and show.  So many of our colleagues and fans were in attendances and lots of great memories were made.

Then, no sooner do we fly home from the con, then the Air Chief and Valerie packed up once again and this time headed down to Denver to be guests at the second annual Denver Comic Comic. The year prior, the con's debut had brought in nearly 26,000 fans.  Most of us thought we'd see them expand to the 30,000 mark. Ha, we were so far off the mark it was ridiculous.  In the end the final tally was closer to 48,000 fans who turned out during those four days. It was crazy and we had so much fun. There were so many cosplayers like the group pictured above. And once again the Air Chief made lots of great new fans. We can only imagine what next year's show will be like.  Ha.

Then a short week later, barely having recovered from the DCC, the Air Chief and pro-artist, Felipe Echevarria were driving up to nearby Cheyenne Wyoming to put on a two day workshop in Comics and Graphic Novel storytelling.  See what we mean about a Traveling Year?  Above is the flier for that event and we had ten students take the workshop.  This was the first time the Air Chief had ever done anything like this at a college venue and we very much hope to do a lot more of these in the future.

Summer seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye.  Suddenly we were into the last week of July and it was once again time to for Rob and the Air Chief to wing our way to Columbus, Ohio, and Pulp Fest.  As we mentioned before, we had the new patch premiums on hand and Rob had just managed to put together the multi-disc audio set for our book – CAPTAIN HAZZARD – PYTHON MEN OF THE LOST CITY as read by Joe Stofko and produced by Dynamic Ram Studios. It is on four six disc and last six hours long. You can also purchase it on line as a download from the popular site www.Adidble.com – Rob had assembled five sets and we sold four of them at the show.  The audio book is doing extremely well and as we write these words, Joe is now recording the second of our Captain Hazzard adventures, CITADEL OF FEAR.

Another truly fun gathering of friends and fans.  While at Pulp Fest we released the 11th issue of our comic series, MR. JIGSAW – Man of a Thousand Parts.

Unfortunately the Air Chief didn't realize until he'd flown back home that the book had two pages printed out of order.  Never mind the story itself was a time travel and those mixed up pages made the story incomprehensible.  We had to go back to the printers, scrap the original files and redo the entire book.  Happily with weeks the clean edition was out and available to our legion of Jiggy fans.  And we are happy to report that issue # 12 should be out early in 2014.

With summer quickly fading into our rear-view mirror, one of our major family events occurred when our grandson Alex went and passed his driver's test and obtained his driver's license.  We couldn't be more proud of him.  Now he's working every chance to earn enough to eventually buy his own car. We so admire his determination.

Of course Fall brought with it the end of the regular baseball season and lo and behold, the Red Sox had won their division!!  Going from last to first place in just one season.  And all of us knew the BOSTON STRONG theme was what was inspiring this team of talented ball players to achieve the impossible.  October arrived and our battling Sox beat the Tamp Bay Rays to seal the Division Championship. Then they took on the powerful Detroit Tigers and again managed to find a way to come out on top as American League Champs.  Finally it was time to face the National League Champs, the St.Louis Cardinals in the 2013 World Series.  The Red Sox and Cardinals slugged it out, each team laying it all out on the field but in the end, on a glorious night in Fenway Park, the bearded Red Sox beat the Cardinals in a Game 6 and won the series.  The Red Sox were the World Champs and Boston was stronger than ever.  If this wasn't a real life metaphor of good and right triumphing over evil, the Air Chief doesn't know what is.  We had to wipe away a few stray tears watching these guys hold up that trophy.  AMAZING!!!

On Nov 5th, the Air Chief turned 67 years old.  A week later, Dark Horse comics released a magnificent reprinted edition of  TERMINATOR – BURNING EARTH, a min-series we'd done over twenty five years ago at the start of our career with artist Alex Ross.  Here we are at a local comic shop along with our pal and protege, Todd Jones who holds up his copy.  It was icing on the cake for us that had been this wild and crazy year.  Oh, there were tons of other things we'll never forget about 2013, there were some great books, movies and TV series that entertained us greatly.  After all, life is to be live and we like to think we've finally gotten that down pat.

This was but a small glimpse and we hope your own experiences were filled with mostly happy ones too. And we thank you for stopping by every week, supporting us and wish you and yours a truly FANTASTIC & HAPPY NEW YEAR.  Be safe and we'll see you back here in seven.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, sorry this week's Flight Log was a bit delayed in getting up.  What with Christmas only days away, the Air Chief is hustling to get things ready etc.  A hectic, but fun time of the year to be sure.

Last week we announced the release of Airship 27 Productions fifth volume of our best selling series, SHERLOCK HOLMES – Consulting Detective. One of the writers in that collection was one of our regulars, Canadian Andrew Salmon. Back in 2009 Andrew submitted a Sherlock Holmes tale for volume one.  It was his first Sherlock Holmes story and won him the Pulp Factory Award for Best Pulp Short Story of 2009.  Since then, Andrew has written a new Holmes and Watson adventure for each consecutive volume of the series and in the process made a reputation for himself as one of the premier Sherlock Holmes writers working today.  Enough so that the good people at Fightcard press approached him earlier in the year to see if he would be up to the challenge of writing a Fightcard book starring the Great Detective.  Andrew accepted that challenge and wrote a brilliant tale called SHERLOCK HOLMES – WORK CAPITOL that was recently released.  In it Holmes delves into the world of London's illegal bare-knuckles fighting.  The book is superb, meticulously researched and written.  In a review the Air Chief posted on-line recently, we dared to called Andrew's best Holmes fiction to date.  If you are a Sherlock Holmes fan, please, head on over to Amazon where it is available in both hard copy and on Kindle.  You'll be glad you did.

One of the things this time of year seems to always bring with it are long-ago memories of other Christmas times when we were young.  People often asks us if there were any particular gifts we remember fondly and our answer is always the same.  Growing up in the late 40s and into the 50s, one of our heroes was the King of the Cowboys, Roy Rogers.  Roy had a half hour show on television and we never missed it.  Around 1956, at the ripe old age of ten, we recall television ads for a Roy Rogers Double R Bar Ranch set that came with the ranch, cattle, horses and figures of Roy on his horse Trigger, his wife Dale Evans on her Buttermilk, Bullet their German Shepherd dog, and there was even foreman comedian Pat Brady with his jeep NelleBelle.  We went crazy over that set and we pestered Mom and Dad non-stop about that truly awesome set of figures.  We were never a rich family, both our parents worked and money was always in short supply, so Christmas wishes were always a fifty-fifty thing.  But that year, we fondly remember waking up, around 6 a.m., Christmas morning and rushing down the stairs to the living room where we found waiting for us, all laid out under the Christmas tree none other than the entire Roy Rogers Doube R Bar Ranch Set.

Dad had carefully taken out every single piece from the box and arranged the entire diorama out beautifully.  To this day, fifty-seven years later, the Air Chief has never forgotten the joyful euphoria that overwhelmed us as we dropped to the floor and reverently held each of those pieces in our hands.  It truly was the most wonderful Christmas the little Air Chief had ever had.

For the Air Chief and his entire family, Christmas is also a Holy Time where we take time to pray and thank our beloved savior, Jesus Christ, for this miracle of friends and family he has filled our lives with.  We pray that all His blessing will shower down on your families on this special of times and that Santa will truly make this for all of you…THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, well here we announcing our 18th and final Airship 27 Production title of 2013.  Last year, Rob Davis and the Air Chief together produced a record setting 16 titles.  We were thrilled with that number and thought this year we might just scale things back a little bit.  Do keep in mind we are strictly a two man operation primarily and Rob still works a full time “day” job while assembling all our books at night after he gets home.

Anyway, 2013 rolled in and out of the blue writer Michael Vance joined the team as our official Marketing Manager and we were thrilled to have him aboard.  We began putting out titles, novels and anthologies and even our first ever children's book – BARRY BASKERVILLE SOLVES A CASE by Richard Kellogg with art by Gary Kato.  So here we are, the start of December and we have just published our 18th title!  No one is more surprised about this then Rob and the Air Chief.  And rest assured we know fully well none of this would have been possible save for the supremely talented, and loyal, writers and artist who deliver such amazing work for us constantly.

And so our newest title is –  SHERLOCK HOLMES – Consulting Detective Vol 5!!  It features four new classic Homes and Watson tales as written by Chuck Miller, Aaron Smith, Andrew Salmon and I.A. Watson, every one of them a mystery gem.  Rob provides twelve gorgeous interior illustrations and the cover (above) is by the truly gifted Mike Fyles.  These Sherlock Holmes anthologies have been amongst our best selling titles since we started publishing them and fans keep asking us for more, which we are only too happy to provide them with.  As ever this is now on sale at Amazon but as a hard copy and on their Kindle e-reader.  We hope you'll give it a look-see.

On the comic front the Air Chief is still having a blast working with artist Michael Dorman on our new SPIDER-DOMINO LADY series for Moonstone Comics.  This past week we recruited our good friend Brant Fowler, one of our co-host on the weekly Zone 4 internet podcast show, to be the book's letterer and we couldn't be happier.  Brant's one of the finest comic book letterer's in the business.  The Air Chief finished the second script and has turned it in while Michael is almost half-way through drawing the pages for the first issue.  Stay tuned, we'll keep you posted as it moves along.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen, in the midst of the Holiday Season, we still keep pounding away at what we love best.  We hope all of you are enjoying the season and staying warm.
Till next week, take care,

Ron – Over & Out!