Greeting Loyal Airmen, we certainly hope all of you are enjoying this great Spring weather.  Baseball season has finally arrived and Valerie and the Air Chief have been thoroughly enjoying seeing our Red Sox back in action.  As you read this Flight Log, April 5th, they are home in Fenway receiving their 2013 World Series Rings in a ceremony before today's afternoon game.  Here's hoping they have another great season.  GO SOX!!

Speaking of winners. one of our big pulp winners from Airship 27 Productions last year was our first Captain Action novel, THE RIDDLE OF THE GLOWING MEN by writer Jim Beard.  As you'll recall, this was our first ever title based on a licensed property and it was a joy for us to produce. Well we've just followed up with the sequel, HEARTS OF THE RISING SUN, now available from the same writer at Amazon.com in hard copy and on Kindle within a few days.  In this new thriller, Captain Action, Miles Drake, travels to Japan in 1968 where a set of mysterious gems have been unearthed that possess incredible power.  He must prevent his arch enemy, the twisted alien fiend, Dr. Evil from getting his hands on them and to do so he will the need the help of a very famous classic pulp hero of old.  We don't want to spoil the fun so check out that great cover (above) by Michael Youngblood and head on over to Amazon to pick up a copy of this great adventure novel.  The Air Chief guarantees you'll love it.

                              
                                                                     WRITER ROMAN LEARY

Another big seller from 2013 was BROTHER BONES – SIX DAYS OF THE DRAGON by Roman Leary of North Carolina, the only Brother Bones adventure not written by the Air Chief.  Chuckle.  Both it and the gorgeous cover were nominated for this year's Pulp Factory Awards which will be announced later this month at the Windy City Pulp & Paper Con.  Here's a great shot of Roman as was featured in a local town newspaper article about him and his writing career.  Way to go, Roman!  We predict a stellar career for this gifted writer.

And finally, you know what never gets old?  Getting comics in the mail, especially those the Air Chief has written…which is what happened earlier this week.  Amongst the stash delivered by the U.S. Post Office were copies of MR.JIGSAW # 12,  RON FORTIER'S TALES OF THE MACABRE # 5 and our own complimentary copy of Lil Comics GRAFIX CHRONICLES # 2 which contained a short horror strip we penned.  All three titles are available for sale at (www.IndyPlanet.com).  We hope you'll give them a look and as ever, we thank you for you support, both for our comics and pulp books.

And there you go for the first week in April, Loyal Airmen.  Take care and see you back here next week.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, with Spring in full gear, things around Hangar 27 HQ have been has hectic as ever and all in a truly positive way.  Starting with the release of our newest Airship 27 Productions pulp anthology.

The Green Ghost was another of the hundreds of bizarre pulp heroes from the 1930s and we are thrilled to bring him back into action with this first volume of his all new adventures.  It features four great stories by Michael Panush, Chris Bell, Greg Hatcher and Erwin K. Roberts.  The fun of this series is the hero, George Chance, was a former stage magician who turned vigilante and began helping the law solve some truly weird cases.  Anyway, the book went on sale at the start of the week and is now available at Amazon in both hard copy and E-book for their Kindle line. 

But what surprised the Air Chief the most was writer Greg Hatcher went and focused his entire weekly blog on this book and his entry in it.  It is a wonderfully written, concise history of the character and the Air Chief urges you to check out Greg's blog and check it out.  (http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2014/03/26/wednesdays-big-announcement/)  Greg is a dynamite writer and we hope to make him a regular amongst our Airship 27 creative crew.

As regular visitors to this Flight Log know, in the past month we've released some truly unique books, all of them firsts for us and naturally we've been apprehensive as to how well these books have registered with all of you.  Well, as ever, you Loyal Airmen have come through with flying colors.  The Air Chief's first ever exclusive E-Book, THE WIND UP KID, selling on Kindle is a qualified hit and is picking up all kinds of great reviews from our readers.  Please, check it out on Amazon.  Again, it is only .99 cents for a download to this 48 page novella pretty much described as a steampunk-weird-western and see what other readers have said about.  One even suggested he would like to see these characters come back in more adventures.  Now there's an interesting idea.  We'll wait and see if other readers share that feeling.  One thing is sure, we certainly will be doing more E-Books in the future.

Our other original offering was the black and white art book – NOIR – The Art of Rob Moran.  Not only is this book selling well at Amazon and also accumulating some truly rave reviews, Rob has taken it upon himself to spice things up by offering special, unique collectibles to people who buy his book.  Read the following carefully.

The first 20 people who buy a copy of the book…and then leave a review on the Amazon page will all get an NOIR postcard mailed to them from artist Rob Moran and signed by him.  Thus they will have his autograph to file away with their copy of his book.  Again, this applies only to the first 20.

Then, from the names of these 20 generous souls, Rob is going to draw a name  (out of a hat no doubt) and the lucky fan will be send an ORIGINAL piece of art by Rob!!!  Yup, one of these 20 fans will end up owning an original piece of Rob Moran art.  Now that's is something special.  The last the Air Chief checked, there is still time for people to get into this by going to Amazon and buying their copy of the book.  As ever, thanks so much for your continued support and good luck to the lucky winner.  We'll gladly post the winners name after the drawing has been held.

Continuing with this theme of unusual products from Airship 27 Productions, you will recall that last year we released our first ever childrens' book – BARRY BASKERVILLE SOLVES A CASE by writer Richard Kellogg and artist Gary Kato (again still available at Amazon).  The story of a smart ten year old boy who wants to grow up to be like his hero, Sherlock Holmes.  The book has been a big hit for us since we released and next week we will be released its first sequel; THE RETURN OF BARRY BASKERVILLE.  Once again Richard and Gary have done an amazing job and the new book looks fantastic.  Stay tune, we'll have all the info about it right here next week.

And finally, come Monday, March 31st, the World Champion Boston Red Sox open their 2014 season against the Baltimore Orioles.  Considering 85% of last year's team is back, we have high hopes the Sox will be able to repeat with another championship season.  Something not done since the 90s Yankees.  All fingers crossed….GO SOX!!!

And that does it for this week's Flight Log, Loyal Airmen, as ever thanks for stopping by, enjoy the warm weather and we'll see you back here next week.
Ron – Over & Out!!
  

Greeting Loyal Airmen, here we are with the Spring officially here.  In a few more weeks baseball season will open up and we cannot wait to cheer on our World Champions of 2013, the Boston Red Sox.
In the meantime, there's always lots to do around the old Hangar 27.

Several years ago, the Air Chief discovered on-line a truly talented artist named Rob Moran who hails from Scotland.  Rob has won numerous awards for his work which includes everything from webstirps to graphic novels and book illustrations.  Rob began posting some of his work on-line and the Air Chief soon became a huge fan.  What we noticed immediately is that Rob loved to draw images from the classic black and white gangster movies of the 1930s and 40s.  Here were the great cinematic tough guys like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson to name a few.  He also drew, extremely well, the famous femme fatales of those Noir classics.

We were so impressed that when it came time for us to start work on writer Terrence McCauley's wonderful gangster novel, PROHIBITION, we went begging Rob to join the team and do the art for it.
Much to our delight he agreed and ended up winning the Pulp Factory Award that year for Best Interior Illustrations.  Last year we once again managed to cajole him in working on Roman Leary's pulp thriller, BROTHER BONES – SIX DAYS OF DRAGON.  It should come as no surprise to you that Rob has also been nominated for that particular project.  The results of this year's voting to be revealed in April at the Windy City Pulp & Paper Con.

Anyway, all the while we were with with Rob, he began telling the Air Chief, and Airship 27 Productions' own Rob, Art Director Rob Davis, that he had lots and lots of these illustrations and had often hoped to one day collect them all in an art book showcasing his work.  Well, you don' t have to hit the Air Chief over the noggin when we hear a great idea.  Rob (Davis) and the Air Chief immediately loved the idea and volunteered to produce the book for him, if he would be willing to allow us that singular honor.  Happily Rob (Moran) said yes and earlier this week, Airship 27 Productions released its first ever pulp orientated art book – NOIR – The Art of Rob Moran.  See that gorgeous cover above.  The book is available at Amazon, its 8 X 11 and half inches with 70 pages of some of the most beautiful black and white illustration art you will ever see.  Sales have been brisk since we announced its release and if you are a true lover of art, we hope you'll give this your support.

The school kids here in Fort Collins, have been enjoying their week of Spring break out of school and happily the warm weather has been most welcome to all of them.  One of the major fun places in our city is the amazing Children's Museum of Discovery.  See photo above.  During this break week, the museum every year devotes every day of the week to a specific theme dealing with both creativity and science.  Friday is reserved for COMIC BOOK CREATING and the Air Chief and several of his comic book colleagues will be on hand at the museum all day to explain to these kids how comics are made, show them original art and talk about the creative process and how it relates to comic storytelling.  We did this last year and had a blast.  We're thrilled the museum director also agreed and invited us back again.

And finally, about a month ago the Air Chief gave an on-line interview about his writing career. You can find it here on line (http://maybeillbeback.podbean.com/2014/03/20/ron-fortier/) and we are told on I-Tunes as well. Enjoy and thanks to Corey Hodgon, the show's host for having us.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  We wish all of you a truly wonderful Spring, good weather and fun.  Get outside and enjoy the wonders of nature, they are all around us.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, this week's Flight Log is being recorded a full day early as tomorrow, Friday 14th March, the Air Chief will be at the Knowledge Quest Academy in Milliken, CO giving two presentations on How Comics Books Are Made.  We are told we'll have two audiences, each with approximately fifty students each.  Wow. That is going to be so much.  Hopefully someone will snap some photos and we'll be able to shared them with you here next week.

One of the realities of being a writer is the dreaded rejection notice.  Not everything one writes is going to be accepted and that's a difficult lesson for some young writers to learn.  It can be really disheartening to pour your time, sweat and imagination into a story only to have some editor reject it in the end.  But again, we do not know of a single writer who hasn't amassed a good collection of these pesky things during their careers, primarily during their beginnings in the field.

Yet some people think once a writer has established him or herself, then they never get another rejection slip.  WRONG.  Again, everything one writes is not always going to please the editor it is intended for.  Editors have a tough job, especially those who produce anthologies.  Part of their responsibility is choosing lots of stories that adhere to some set perimeter, are different but again fit together smoothly as a whole.  Recently the Air Chief was invited to submit a story to a Weird Western anthology being edited by a colleague.  Out intention was to deliver to him a short tale in the vicinity of four to five thousand words.  Unfortunately, as often happens with some stories, this one took on a life of its on and wouldn't end in that balloted space.  By the time the Air Chief had wrapped it up, it exceeded 14,000 words.  So even as we submitted it, we realistically knew our chances of selling it weren't high.  And sure enough, this editor rejected it.  Although not for its length, as he explained in his kind letter, but he felt its tone wasn't as “dark” as the other material being turned in.  Because of that, it simply just didn't mesh well with the other entries and so we got a rejection notice.

And let's be real, even though we expected it, that didn't make it any easier to accept.  Oh, not that this tale wouldn't be in this particular anthology, but that no one would get to read it.  Thus for the next few days we scoured the internet in hopes of finding as yet another anthology project that it might be better suited to.  Somewhere along this hunt, we mentioned the situation to our writer pal, Jim Beard.  He surprised us by suggesting, rather than find a book publisher, why didn't we simply put it up at Amazon as an E-Book for their Kindle library.  Having never done anything like that before, the Air Chief went to his pal, Airship 27 Art Director Rob Davis and he readily supported Jim's idea.  To the point of actually doing up a nice cover art image to go with the novella.

Three days later THE WIND UP KIND, a weird western steampunk type novella, appeared at Amazon and an exclusive E-Book for their Kindle Readers.  It sells for .99 cents a download and we hope you'll be curious enough to go to Amazon and give it a look-see.  We particularly love the sketch Rob did up as it totally captures the two main characters perfectly.  It was a really fun story to write and now we hope lots of you Loyal Airmen will get to enjoy it as well.  If you should be so kind as to download it and read it, please do leave us a review.  This is our first ever E-Book and we're anxious to see if we should do more of them.  Thanks ever.

On the more traditional comic front, this past week also saw the Redbud Studio release of RON FORTIER'S TALES OF THE MACABRE # 5.  This one features two stories, THE MONSTER VS THE MACHINE as illustrated by Erik Roman and a World War II spy thriller, LA FEMME LIBERTE…as drawn by John Polacek…as ever both scripts by the Air Chief.   The cover was provided by Rob Davis with colors by Shannon Hall.  The book is available at (www.IndyPlanet.com) and as ever, the Air Chief is having a blast with these.  We hope you are as well.

And that's it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  As ever, thanks for stopping by and we'll see you back here next week.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday this week and so we are 40 days way from Easter and the coming of Spring once again.  After a long, arduous winter, we are sure most of you are more than ready for green grass, flowers and lovely, warm air. Bring it on, Mother Nature.  Although the Air Chief is keeping busy as ever here at Hangar 27 HQ, not too many things have been released of late, though quite a few are coming down the pipeline.  So we figured we just show off a few pieces of artwork you might enjoy.                                                  

Several years ago the good folks at Twilight Star Studios launched my comic series, RON FORTIER'S TALES OF THE MACABRE.  All of this from our good pal, Bill Gladman.  Naturally the Air Chief was extremely flattered.  Enough so that we, the Air Chief and his pal, artist Rob Davis, began running the self same series via Rob's own Redbud Studio.  We are soon to be releasing issue # 5 of that series.  Whereas, for lots of various reasons, Twilight Star has opted to end their version and they are going to warp it up in a big way by publishing an extra large size issue that will feature the amazing cover above.  It was illustrated by artist Christ Metzer and colored by Lisa Moore, both dear friends of the Air Chief. They, Twilight Start, hope to have this special issue out in April at their Gem City Comic Con in Springfield, Ohio.  Now Redbud Studio is not going to be reprinting this issue as we have plans to continue the series and the strips in this will all appear in future regular-size issues of the Redbud version of TALES OF THE MACABRE.  Though, at a later date Rob and the Air Chief have discussed the possibility of doing a giant edition collection four or five single issues into one massive tome.  Should we pursue that idea, this will most likely be the cover image that appears on it.  So stay tuned….and allow the Air Chief a heartfelt thanks to Bill, all his crew at Twilight Star Studios and especially to Chris & Lisa.  We are blessed to have such great and talented friends.

Speaking of such generous and thoughtful people, we were much surprised and delighted to find the above mock-pulp cover posted on our Facebook page this afternoon.  Its the product of pulp fan Dale Harris who thought it would be very cook to team up our hero, Brother Bones, with the Shadow. And the above is the result.  We absolutely love it.  There's a lot coming your way in regards to Brother Bones – The Undead Avenger.  Airship 27 Productions hopes to release his third book, TAPESTRY OF BLOOD in a month or so, with all new stories by the Air Chief, interior illustrations by Rob Davis and a gorgeous painted cover by Patricio Carabjal that will blow you away. There's also a Role Playing Game module in the works and hopefully more audio adventures.  Again, stay tuned.

Speaking of pulps, last year, while attending the annual Windy City Pulp & Paper Con in Chicago, the Air Chief and Rob Davis were interviewed by a video recorder for a You Tube Series called MTC – Meet The Creators.  It runs 8 minute longs and shows the Air Chief waxing excitedly about all things pulps. If you'd like to check it out, simply cut and paste this URL into your search slot.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDxHvbaRmMo)

Our thanks to video editor Ken Stouffer and his cameraman, Jack, for producing a truly fine video. And please, if you do check it out, do sign up as a subscriber to their show.  They hope to do many more of these excellent video interviews with other writers, artists and publishers.

And there you have it for another week, Loyal Airmen.  Thanks ever stopping by.  Keeping thinking Spring and we'll see you all back here next week.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, we've got a TON of things to chat about this week so let's get going.  Issue number eleven of our on-going comic series, MR. JIGSAW Man of a Thousand Parts is now out.

This one features the full length adventure The Pirates of Perchance, script by the Air Chief, art by Gary Kato and edits by Redbud Studio's own Rob Davis. This is our homage to the old comedy TV show, Gilligan's Island for those of you Loyal Airmen old enough to know what we're talking about. The book is available from (www.IndyPlanet.com).  Enjoy. It was a blast to do.

As most of you know, the Air Chief loves visiting local elementary schools and talking about writing and creating comics.  Last week he, and local professional artist Felipe Echevarria teamed up and visited a fifth grade class to talk about how writers and artists work together.  Here is the Air Chief with half the class talking about how to build a story.

Later Felipe and I teamed up at a digital board where he proceeded to draw a page from a script the Air Chief had written.  We'd shared the page with the kids and all of them got to see first hand how Felipe, as a professional graphic artist set about interpreting what we had put down on the script.  Both of us truly had a great time with these kids.

We've mentioned in the past that there are two awards given out these days for excellence in writing and drawing pulp fiction.  One is the Pulp Factory Awards which are presented every year at the Windy City Pulp & Paper show in April in Chicago.  The other was the Pulp Ark Awards which were handed out at the Pulp Ark Convention in Arkansas, as managed by Tommy Hancock.  Sadly there will be no PA Convention this year but happily Tommy chose to continue the awards, only with a name change; they are now the New Pulp Awards and today Tommy released the names of all the creators who made the final ballot.  Unlike the Pulp Factory Awards which only have 4 categories, the New Pulp Awards have a full dozen.

The Air Chief was thrilled to see so many of our Airship 27 Productions titles and creators represented throughout the various categories.  What was a genuine surprise was finding that we had been personally nominated in a few categories and for that we are truly honored and appreciated.

Last year we wrote a short story, “The Lawman,” for the Pro Se Press anthology, BLACK PULP. It has been nominated for Best Pulp Short Story.

We also wrote a Brother Bones adventure entitled “The Plastic Army,” which appeared in Pro Se Presents Summer 2013 issue.  It has been nominated for Best Pulp Novella.  Honestly, Loyal Airmen, we are simply bowled over by both these nominations and can't thank people enough for voting for us.  Note, the voting is open to the public at large and you can obtain a copy of the ballot on-line.  Just Google New Pulp Awards Ballot.  We thank you for your support.  No announcement has been made as to where these will be presented.  We'll keep you posted. 

Here's the link to downloading a ballot –
(http://newpulpawards2014.blogspot.com/p/new-pulp-awards-2014-official-ballot.html)

And finally, last week we mentioned the news of Fort Collins first ever comics event, the FoCo Comcis and Gaming Festival to be held at the Drake Center here in Fort Collins, Co. on Sat April 19th.  Well,
as of today, the Festival has its own Facebook page with pictures and articles on the sixteen guests who be appearing at this fun show. Here they are in alphabetical order –

Abe Akin, Mike Baron, Chad Blakely, Matt Campbell, Ron Fortier, Greg Guler, Jeff Herndon, Zach Howard, Todd Jones, Patrick Joel de Leon, Eric Meador, Ben Mikkleson, James Montoya, Lee Oaks, Tom Webster and Jolyon Yates.  As you can see, a really stellar line up…even with that Fortier dude.  Ha.  Again, go check out their Facebook page.  We are really looking forward to this first ever comic show in our fair city.

And that's it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  Again, go get that New Pulp Award ballot and vote for the Air Chief if you so desire. We appreciate all your support.  Till next week, stay safe,

Ron – Over & Out!

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!