Greetings Loyal Airmen, this time next week the Air Chief will be in Columbus, Ohio, for the annual Pulp Fest Convention and we certainly hope to see many of you there.  Okay, let's dig into this week's Flight Log.  You know, there are some weeks where the Air Chief scrambles to find something to write about here and others, like this one, are this chock full of good things to share with you.  So let's dive right in, shall we.?

After many long months, the newest issues of  MR. JIGSAW – Man of a Thousand Parts # 11 is at long last out and available at (www.IndyPlanet.com).  Just go to our Links page and click on there to either Jiggy's own website page or that of his publisher, Redbud Studio.  This story, “The Life of Pie,” is a time-travel adventure the Air Chief has been wanting to try for a long time and we really really hope you'll enjoy it as much fun as we had bringing it to you.  Art as ever by our co-creator Gary Kato with edits and design work by Rob Davis.

Now on the pulp side, we just released our seventh title from Airship 27 Productions,  I.A. Watson's final book in his fantastic Robin Hood trilogy;  ROBIN HOOD – FREEDOM'S OUTLAW.  The previous two books, KING OF SHERWOOD & ARROW OF JUSTICE were great adventure novels but this one is the grand finale that wraps up the entire sage…in such a grand manner.  I.A. Watson is one of the finest British writers in the field today and you owe it to yourselves to discover his wonderful fiction.  The book is now available at our Airship 27 website (click on to the dirigible logo to upper left corner of this column) and will be at Amazon within the next few days both as a hard copy book and as a digital copy for Kindle.  As with the previous two entries, artist Mike Manley provided this awesome cover and Rob David has nine gorgeous spot illustrations to dress things up.

Staying on the pulp theme, the Air Chief's latest pulp short story is a brand new Spider tale called “SPIDER TRAP” and it is features in Moonstone Books' new anthology pictured above, SPIDER – Extreme Prejudice.  This is our second short story starring the Master of Men, the Spider and we had a blast writing it. He is such a great pulp character.  The book is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble on-line and through Moonstone's own website.  Give it a look, we think you'll enjoy it.

Finally, we saw the summer sci-fi blockbuster PACIFIC RIM this past week and absolutely loved it!!  Major thumbs up to director Guiermo Del Toro, the same genius who made the Hellboy movies, and his crew for delivering a non-stop, actioner that is brilliantly done.  Giant monsters fight giant robots!!!  What more could any sci-fi enthusiast ask for?  The flick has great FX, tons of action, a good story and marvelous acting by the entire cast.  Bottom, this is our favorite the movie of the year thus far, with IRON MAN 3 and STAR TREK Into the Darkness tying for second place.  All you Loyal Airmen owe to yourselves to go see this truly fun movie.  Next up for us will most likely be, WOLVERINE.  Oh, yeah.

And that wraps it all up for this week, Loyal Airmen.  We've tons to do at Hangar 27 before the next seven days go up and we fly out to Columbus.  Thanks as ever for stopping by.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, this week we are going to take a small trip back in time.  The thing that constantly amazines the Air Chief is how vast the World Wide Web truly is and the amount of data that is every day being stored on it; telling the entire history of the human race up to this very moment.  That never became more apparent to us then this past week when we discovered a Facebook page called the Charlton Arrow devoted to that long ago small comic company that operated out of Derby Conn.  When we found the page, we mentioned to the people running it that it was at Charlton that the Air Chief, and his artist pal, Gary Kato, got their first break in the comics biz. We had submitted a sci-fi story called “Duel in the Stars” and Charlton went on to publish it in the third issue of their new try out title, CHARLTON BULLSEYE.

Well no sooner had we mentioned it to the good people managing that Facebook page then up pops the cover for that particular book.  We noted it was dated 1981, meaning we've been at this comics writing stuff professionally for thirty two years.  Amazing.  And as if that wasn't enough, the gentlemen who put up the page went to to scan and post the entire issue on his blog site.

And here's the first page to that story, all the artwork and lettering done by Gary.  The coloring was provided by Charlton.  Our assistant editor who worked with us on this debut was Bill Pearson.  Later he would ask us to do something else for them which we were only to happy to comply with.  And that was the first ever story starring our long running comedy super-hero, Mr. Jigsaw Man of a Thousand Parts.  Seeing that cover and page sure brought back tons of memories for the Air Chief.

Off course we've never stopped working in the field we love so much to this day and figured we'd end this particular Flight Log with a glimpse forward.  A few years ago the Air Chief created a new comic character named Satin Wei, a Chinese cat-burglar and wrote 48 pg story with her as the star.  At the time we had an artist on board who did up a lot of great art for the project.  Sadly, he had to bow out before we could get the comic done.  Now, years later, we've teamed with Canadian artist Olivier Raymond who has jumped on board to bring this comic, cleverly titled SATIN'S WAYS to graphic life.  Above is a whimsical sketch he did up wherein we see our girl coming home to her inner sanctum after a hard nights' work on the job.  Behind her are a few of the more recognizable prizes she's…ah….pick up in her career.  Ha.  Trust us, as Olivier begins turning in completed pages, we'll keep you all posted.

                       
                                                         Jacoby Elsbury Swings Away!!

Wow, after hitting a buzz saw in Anaheim with the battling Angels and losing three in a row, our beloved Red Sox heading up to Seattle to take on the Mariners and quickly got back to their winning ways.  The All Star Game (and break) happen next week, at which time many of the teams look to strengthen there positions for the second half of the season by hopefully making useful trades.  Personally, the Air Chief has never been completely satisfied with the Sox's starting pitching squad and is hoping management will look to picking up one more ace during the trading period.  This team is a hard fighting squad, but in the end it is pitching that wins ballgames and it remains the Sox weak link the chain.

Okay, that wraps up this week's Flight Log.  As ever thanks for stopping by and reading.  We'll see you back here in seven.
Ron – Over and Out!

Greetings Loyal, Airmen, and as we pen this on July 4th, a sincere Happy Independence Day to all of you.
We Americans live in the greatest country in the world.  John Wayne said so and the Air Chief is not about to ever argue with the Duke.  We hope all you Loyal Airmen have had a fantastic holiday and as ever, God Bless America.

As some of you know, beside working on partners together over at Airship 27 Productions, the Air Chief helps his pal, pro artist, Rob Davis, manage his Redbud Studio where we self-publish via on-demand-printing comic projects both Rob and the Air Chief have had sitting dormant for year.s

We initially began Redbud Studio to publish our graphic novel DAUGHTER OF DRACULA.  Shortly thereafter we decided to bring back the Air Chief's character, Mr. Jigsaw and publish his new adventures, once again availing ourselves of artist Gary Kato's wonderful art.  Then came the second graphic novel,
BOSTON BOMBERS, then the BROTHER BONES one shot, our TALES OF THE MACABRE and finally Rob was able to republish his magnificent ROBYN OF SHERWOOD done with writer Paul Storrie.  It seemed liked every few months we were putting out a new comic title along with our Airship 27 pulp books.

So after several years, we finally bit the bullet and this past week we launched a Redbud Studio Facebook page.  Yup, the studio now has its own page and within hours, we were getting all kinds of hits on the LIKE button until by the end of our first day alone, we'd received over 250 Likes!!!  Wahooo.   Please, if you are on Facebook, check us out there.  We plan on making this a central clearing house where we'll be posting all kinds of preview artwork from many of the exciting new comic projects we have in the works now.

One of the features on the page is it allows us to create photo albums and the Air Chief spend some time finding and posting the covers to all the comics we'd produced since starting the company.  Would you believe there are now 25 Redbud Studio titles?  All of them can be had at (www.IndyPlanet.com) or, of course, directly from Rob and the Air Chief at any of the cons we appear at.  Oh, and some time later this year we will be releasing our first full color comic.  There's a preview page on the FB page, so go check it out.

Not to say  we're not still creating lots of new pulp books.  Coming up next from Airship 27 Productions will be out third Robin Hood adventure by British writer I.A Watson and our second Sinbad – The New Voyages, the second fantasy anthology in this exciting new series.  Stay tuned, we'll let you know when each is out.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  Take care and enjoy the summer,
Ron – Over & Out!

Dear Loyal Airmen, we wrote and posted the entry that follows last Sunday after having been away from Hangar 27 for two weeks and we wanted to get you all caught up on what's been happening.  Since writing this entry, we were contacted by the editor of the Terminator reprint project (which you will soon read about below) asking if we would like to write an Afterword Essay for the book.  That was truly gracious of them and we've complied.  So be sure to order a copy of the book now to make sure you get one when they are released in November.
Thanks, and now on with our regular Flight Entry.  Next week we'll have tons more news for you.
—————————————————————————————————–
Greetings Loyal Airmen, well, after two fast and hectic weeks back in New Hampshire & Maine, Val and the Air Chief are home once again in Hangar 27 HQ here in sunny Fort Collins, CO and we are so happy to be back. This truly has become our home these past three years.  Of course visiting family and friends was a blast.

On our third day in southern New Hampshire, we had a family reunion at a favorite seafood restaurant and then stopped at a nearby park next to a bay to take a few snapshots.  Above are sis, Ann Cormier, brother Paul Fortier, the Air Chief and of course Mom (Gabrielle Fortier) who will be a spry 89 come this November. As you can see by her smile, she was truly happy to have us all together again.  Sadly, brother George Fortier couldn't get away to join us.  All in all it was a super day and the first of several times we visited with Mom during our two weeks.  Whereas Paul lives in Vermont and Ann and her husband Norman had to head back to their home in Florida.  All too often, as we get older, we do drift away from siblings and parents and so these rare get togethers are that much more precious to all of us.

Before leaving New Hampshire, we made a special trip to the coolest comic shop in all of New Hampshire, Jetpack comics, to do a signing and were delighted when other family and friends stopped by.  Here we are with Val's cousin Ann Hebert and her son, Matthew.  Matthew is a savvy computer dude who just graduated from Somersworth High School and hopes to go to a local community college come the Fall.  We're sure he's going to do great.

One of our best friends ever is writer Larry Young of Maine.  He, his wife Heidi (she snapped the pix) and their lovely daughter, made it a point to stop by and say hi.  The Air Chief was thrilled to see them and anxious to talk with Larry about his writing projects.  He's got a new graphic novel that's been in the works for years and will soon be coming out.  More on that as it develops.  And a big tip of the hat to the crew at Jetpack Comics in Rochester, NH, for welcoming us back.

Of course in this day an age, even when away from the office here in Hangar 27, we managed to keep tabs on new Airship 27 Productions and actually released two new anthologies while away; thanks in large part to our busy Art Director Rob Davis.
 
                               

QUATERMAIN The New Adventures H. Rider Haggard's action adventure hero, big game hunter, Allan Quatermain and features two new novellas by Aaron Smith and Alan J. Porter, with a stunning cover by Ingrid Hardy and interior illos by Clayton Hinkle. The book is now on-sale at both our on-line website store (click on to the dirigible to the upper left hand of this column) and of course at Amazon.com – We hope you'll enjoy it.

After almost two full years, we are also wound-for-sound to have released MARS McCOY Space Ranger Volume Two.  This one features a long novella by Van Plexico and a short story by James Palmer.  McCoy is pure space opera in the vein of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.  This one features a great cover by Michael Youngblood and interiors by Shannon Hall.  Like available at our store and Amazon.com –  Folks have been waiting for this one.  Over course Rob and the Air Chief will have copies of these at Pulp Fest later in July.

And finally, while away we received the biggest surprise ever via a message from a friend.  Apparently, unbeknown to us, Dark Horse Comics has acquired the rights to the graphic novel the Air Chief wrote many, many years ago that was illustrated by super star Alex Ross and is doing a brand new deluxe reprint. They even managed to finagle Ross into doing a new cover for it.  See above.  The book appears in the current Diamond solicitation magazine PREVIEWS and is scheduled for a November release.  And again, we knew nothing about this at all. Anyways, long out of print, many of our fans always hoped to get the opportunity to get this book and now, at long last, they can.  And that's a very good thing.  Bobbles the Air Chief's mind to think of how many years have gone by since we first wrote that epic climax to the struggle between mankind and Skynet.

And there you have it, Loyal Airmen, our trip is now memory, we're back in the office working on a half dozen pulp titles and almost as many comic projects. Phew, and they call this retirement.  Ha.  Thanks for stopping by as ever and enjoy this wonderful summer.  We'll see you back here come Friday.

Ron – Over & Out.

Greetings Loyal Airmen, well the second Denver Comic Con has now gone into history and it is clearly a weekend the Air Chief and Valerie will never forget.  From 26,000 last year, the Mile High city's second year pulled over 48,000 comic fans.  Yup.  It was insane and reminded us a great deal of the San Diego Comic back in the early 90s before it exploded.

So much to see, with hundreds of folks in wicked cool costumes.

Here's the Air Chief with the X-Men's chief rival, Magneto.  Awesome costume. Val took a dozen photos and we are hoping to get them up on the Comic Related website within a week or so, and we've already put some up at our Facebook page as well.

Many of our comic colleagues from here in Fort Collins also were in attendance at the con, including my good buddy, Toddy Jones.  Here's the Air Chief joining Todd at his table just down the aisle from our own.  Note Todd has copies of our ALL STAR PULP COMICS # 2 on sale as he wrote the Black Bat tale in that volume plus his first ever published anthology, WICKED AWESOME TALES which the Air Chief had a strip in.
We amigos stick together.

Later that same day, Todd got to sit in on his first ever con panel.  Not seen in the photo above were writers Steven Seagle and Joe Kelley, then you have Greg Weisman, Todd and the Air Chief.  The panel's theme was COMICS WRITING – Nuts & Bolts and we had a blast with it, the audience being truly receptive and fun.

And finally, spotted a fellow wearing a top hat, we couldn't resist posing in the handsome head gear. As most of you know its my attire on all the covers of my comic series RON FORTIER' S TALES OF THE MACABRE and we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to done one for real.

Could ramble on and on about this awesome convention, but the Air Chief has been constantly on the go since last weekend's event.  Past two days we've put on a HOW TO AND DRAW COMICS workshop up in nearby Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne Wyoming to a class of ten would be comic creators.  On Saturday morning, Valerie and the Air Chief fly back to New England on a two week jaunt to visit family and friends, so there will be no Flight Logs the next two weeks.  But we'll be back by the end of the month, rest assured.

Until then, Loyal Airmen, enjoy the summer and have fun, it keeps you young.
Ron – Over & Out!
        

Greeting Loyal Airmen, as you are reading this Flight Log, the Air Chief and Valerie are getting settled into the Denver Convention Center located in the heart of the Mile High City. 

That's the center in front of which stands the statue of a GIANT BLUE BEAR.  Will try to snap some pictures for you Airmen over the weekend.  Last year's debut of this show as amazing with attendance over 26,000 happy fans.  We fully expect they will exceed that number.  The show has over a hundred creator guests from all the major genre fields ala comics, sci-fi, TV and films, with William Captain Kirk Shatner as the big super guest star.  It looks to be a huge hit and as the Air Chief has indicated here before, we will be located at table D-15 all weekend from Friday to Sunday.  Note, the Air Chief will also be sitting on a panel at noon time on Sunday the theme of which is superheroes in prose fiction.  The moderator is out good pal, David Boop, and it should be lots of fun.  We truly hope to see tons of our Loyal Airmen at the show.

On writing fronts, several weeks back we mentioned we were going to write a story featuring the characters from James Fenimore Cooper's classic American novel, “The Last of the Mohicans.”  Above is a photo from one of the many film versions of that novel, this one starring Randolf Scott as Hawkeye, here seen with his Mohican stepfather Chigachgook and his step-brother Uncas.  Well, last weekend we put THE END to 15,000 word adventure we titled “SNOW BLIND” and submitted to our editor at White Rocket Books, the folks publishing this new anthology.  Hopefully they will like our entry and the actual book should be out by the end of summer, early fall.  We'll keep you posted.  It was a blast writing these wonderful characters.

And lastly, last year we were invited to write a new Spider pulp yarn for as yet another Spider anthology to be published by the good folks over at Moonstone Books.  We complied and sent in a tale called “SPIDER TRAP.” This morning we received a PDF Proof of the final book so that each writer, including the Air Chief, could go over his story one last time looking for those pesky typos.  Going through the process, and yes, we did find a few, ha, we were taken with how well this particular tale evolved in the writing and how happy we truly are with it.  The Air Chief guesses, THE SPIDER – Extreme Prejudice, should be out sometime in late June. We'll of course post that officially when it happens.

Note, to dress up this part entry, we found a Spider illustration on line done by the super talented artist Francesco Villa.  Francesco does his own pulp comic book hero for Dark Horse Comics called the Black Beetle and we can't recommend it enough to all of you.  If you love pulp action as much as we do, go pick up this comic series, you'll be happy  you did.

And that wraps it up for this week, Loyal Airmen.  Thanks ever for stopping by, we truly appreciate it and have a great weekend, we sure will.
Ron – Over and Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, we got a whole bunch of fun things to share with you this Flight Log, so by all means, lets jump right into it.

Airship 27 Productions is happy to announce the release of our fourth pulp title of the year, DAN FOWLER G-Man Volume II.  Following on the heels of the first volume, this terrific action packed collection features a great cover by Brian McCulloch and interior illustrations by Neil T. Foster with four brand new stories of the ace fed by Derrick Ferguson, Aaron Smith, Joshua Reynolds and Christ Bell.  The book is on sale at our website, on Amazon in both hard copy and on Kindle.  As ever, Loyal Airmen, thanks for your support and of course we will have copies on our tables at Pulp Fest in July.

                   
                                                      Art by Syd Mead
One of the greatest science-fiction artist of our times is Syd Mead.  Mean his career working for the automotive industry in Detroit designing futuristic proto-type cars we all may one day see on the super highways of tomorrow.  It was his success here that brought him to the attention of Hollywood and soon he was doing graphic design work for some of the major sci-fi movies of the past twenty-years to include one of the Air Chief's all time favorites, BLADE RUNNER.

You can imagine our surprise when we learned that the local Museum of Art was having a Syd Mead exhibition running for almost a month.  Last weekend Valerie and the Air Chief took in this great show and we were simply blown away by the thirty some pieces of work on display.  There was even a 90 minute documentary film on Mead's life and career.  In part of that film he talks about how he enjoyed working with BLADE RUNNER director Ridley Scott and how they would spend hours discussing the world that the story was set it.  Many of Mead's drawings would eventually be realized as actual sets on the movie.

Now one of the most dramatic scenes in that classic sci-fi drama is when super clone, Roy Batty,  played by actor Rutger Hauer, knowing he hasn't much time to live, actually saves the human cop sent to destroy, Deckard, played Harrison Ford, before he can fall off a top building roof.  He then drags Deckard away from the edge and sits down opposite him to spend his last minutes of life in an attempt convey all the things he has experienced in so short an existence.  “All the things I've seen,” he begins and them says, “…attack ships of the shoulder of Orion.”  Hauer is so superb in this role, the audience actually tries to visualize those amazing outer space vistas he is referring to. 

Imagine our surprise when going through the art gallery, we find a painting entitled, “Attack Ships off the Shoulder of Orion.”   Sure enough, in reading the accompanying card, Mead explains having been himself inspired by the movie after it was completed and began to imagine the things Roy Batty alluded to his dying monologue and thus he produced this amazing painting.   Had immediately had Valerie snap a photo of the Air Chief along side this truly stunning work of art.  Ironic isn't it?  Mead's sketches helped inspire Ridley Scott and in the end his movie in turn inspired Mead.  Talking about coming full circle.  If you aren't familiar with Syd Mead's work, he does have his own website on-line and there you can purchase lots of super art books filled with his works and even prints to frame and decorate your own Headquarters.

And keeping with our sci-fi movies theme here, we finally got around to go see the new STAR TREK – INTO DARKNESS, the sequel to the J.J. Abrams reboot of the beloved franchise created by the late Gene Roddenberry.  Over the past two weeks since its release, there has been a real firestorm of contention between those folks who loved it and those who hated it.  Oh, we've seen a few middle-ground ho-hum, but not many. For whatever reasons, pro or con, sci-fans have been very passionate in their stances on this one.  So, you ask, where does the Air Chief stand?  We're giving it a big ole thumbs up, having thoroughly enjoyed the two hour action packed story that reassembled the young cast from the first movie.  Whereas we'll never consider a classic of the genre, ala BLADE RUNNER, Val did give it a B and the Air Chief was happy to give it a B +.  So there you go.  Again, we truly like this cast and honestly hope there's a third entry somewhere in the future.

Coming up next will be MAN OF STEEL.  Oh, yeah.  But before that there is still the big Denver Comic Con coming up just next week.  Be back here for our next Flight Log when we'll give you more of our own plans for that event.  Till then, enjoy the warm weather….say some prayers for the folks of Oklahoma and if you can spare them a few dollars, send them to the Red Cross relief fund.  In times like this, we Americans stick together, especially our Loyal Airmen.  God bless

Ron – Over and Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen and welcome to another Flight Log.  Things have really been humming around Hangar 27 the past few days and we are really happy to share this stuff with all of you.

The mailman surprised with some goodies the past couple of days, one of which was our second Pulp Factory Awards trophy above on the left.  As you'll recall, the Air Chief was thrilled and humbled to have won the PF Award for Best Short Story two years in a row at the recent Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention.  Above you see on the right my trophy for my 2011 winner, “Vengeance Is Mine,” which appeared in Moonstone Books' “The Avenger the Justice Files Inc.”  To the left is the new trophy for my 2012 tale, “The Ghoul” which was featured in “Monster Aces” from Pro Se Productions.  Again, a heartfelt thanks to these publisher and editors and especially to all my pulp colleagues who enjoyed them so much to award me these great trophies now gracing my office. Hmm, one pal suggested the Air Chief try for three in a row.  Ha. But considering how many new short stories we have coming out this year, well, one never knows.

And one of those new stories is appearing in a great sci-fi pulp anthology called WARBIRDS OF MARS – Stories of the Fight, which the Air Chief has mentioned several times in these Flight Logs.  Well today my copy arrived and we couldn't be happier.  This is a fantastic book with a dozen stories in over 400 pages of pure pulp action and adventure brilliantly edited by Scott Vaughn and Kane Gilmour.  The book IS on sale right now at Amazon.com in both softcover as the Air Chief his holding above and on Kindle for you e-reader lovers. Please pick up a copy, you will love this book.

                       
                                          Art by Rob Hicks
Our story in this great collection is called, “The Monsters of Adobe Wells.”  Scott & Kane assigned artist Rob Hicks to do an illustration for it and here it is.  It features the hero of my tale, Sgt. Charlie Three-Feathers and we think its a great illustration.  Rob knocked it out of the ball-park.  This story was a blast to write and we certainly all our Loyal Airmen will pick up a copy and get the opportunity to read it.

                              
                                     Cover art by Will Meugniot
And finally, we end this entry with some truly exciting comic book news.  Two years ago, art director Rob Davis and the Air Chief put together a black and white comic anthology featuring new and old pulp heroes.  It was so well received that it went on to win the Pulp Ark Award for Best Pulp Comic of 2011.  We were thrilled and slowly began assembling a second volume.  After a full year of collecting a variety of amazing strips, we are thrilled to announce the release of (Airship 27 presents ALL STAR PULP COMICS #2)  This whopping big edition features tales of Robin Hood, Ki-Gor the Jungle Lord, the Black Bat, Domino Lady, Lance Star Sky Ranger and there's even a brand new Brother Bones strip by the Air Chief and artist Joe Arnold. The book sells for $8 and can only be bought on-line at (www.IndyPlanet.com)  Of course expect to see many of the writers and artists involved with the book hawking copies at their various convention appearances throughout the country in the new few months.

Also note, profits earned on-line during the first six months of sale will all be donated to the Boston Red Cross to aid the victims of the terrorist bombing back on Patriots Day.  All of us involved with this book wanted to do something and writer Van Plexico came up with this wonderful idea which everyone signed on to immediately.  So please, by a copy, get your all your friends to by copies and help us send a big old check to the Boston Red Cross six months from now.  Lets show them what comic and pulp fans can do when they pull together for a worthy cause.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  We do keep busy, don't we?  Ha. Take care and be good.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, the Air Chief is back in his office at Hangar 27 after having spent an amazing weekend in Norman, Oklahoma at the 45th Annual Oklahoma Fiction Writers Conference.  Yup, you read that correctly; this super talented organization of writers has been around for 45 years!!  That in itself is a grand achievement indeed.  As you know, the Air Chief and his pal, artist Rob Davis, were invited this year to present workshops on how to create graphic novels. We did two of these and they were extremely well received.  Everyone one we met, from President Patty Stith, who was kind enough to invited us, to all the attendees were the most gracious people ever and we'd like to think we made tons of new friends in the wonderful Sooner state.  Here's hoping they invited us back again soon.  (Pun intended…chuckle.)

                   
                                 Rob Davis  – Christopher Chance – The Air Chief
And speaking of “new” friends, we are really happy to meet an “old” one for the very first time.  Christopher Chance (yes, the comic book hero WAS named after him, as he is a good friend of comic writer Len Wein) is someone the Air Chief had met on the social network Facebook several years ago.  Chris is one creative dude and as it happens we have the same conservative political leanings, so we became buddies. When he learned Rob and me would be in Norman, Oklahoma, he jumped into his car and drove 137 miles up from his home in Texas just to spend Saturday with us.  What a great guy!!  He even took us out to lunch on top of that.  Thanks so much Chris, it was one of the highlights of this trip to finally meet you in person. Here's hoping we do it again often.

                              
                                                    Denver Comic Con 2012
And speaking of conventions and conferences, no sooner were we back in Colorado and getting settled into the office to tackle the stack of editing chores before us then the good folks in Denver sent along our table number placement for this year's big Denver Comic Con.  Last year, the Air Chief and Val were guest at the premier of this truly super comic con and we had a blast (see photo above).  We're most anxious to get back this year and for all you Loyal Airmen who plan on joining us there, you will find the Air Chief at Table D-15 in Artist Valley.
We'll be bringing more fun comics and for the first time a few of our Captain Hazzard pulp novels.  Hope to see you there, Loyal Airmen.

Because we were out of town last weekend, the Air Chief made it a point to get to the local cinema this past week to see the new comic book movie blockbuster, IRON MAN 3 and we loved it, start to finish.  Of course there are major deviations taken from the actual comic and several of our colleagues who love this character were very upset with these changes.  As someone who hated the GREEN HORNET movie of a few years ago, the Air Chief can certainly empathize with their disappointment.  Still, despite these variations, we absolutely thought the movie was a thrill ride from beginning to end and the cast superb.  Robet Downey Jr, from the first movie in this trilogy has truly been Tony Stark for us and this particular entry seems to come full circle tying up many loose ends and of course setting the stage for the eventual coming of AVENGERS 2 in a few more years. So major thumbs up to a great action movie.

    
                     Special Effects Genius Ray Harryhausen & model of MIGHTY JOE YOUNG
Of course one of the primary reasons Val and the Air Chief enjoyed IRON MAN 3 was the amazing special effects throughout the entire flick.  Which is a poetic segue in our saying farewell to one of the true pioneers of Hollywood movie magic, Ray Harryhausen who passed away this week at the age of 94.  As a teenage boy of 13, Ray saw the original black and white KING KONG and was instantly mesmerized by the stop-motion technique used by the brilliant effects man, Willis O'Brien to make the giant gorilla come to life on screen. Ray proceeded to learn everything he could about the process, bought himself a movie camera and set up his own studio in his family's garage where he began making his own stop-motion shorts.

After graduating from high school, he traveled to Hollywood and somehow managed to get a meeting with his hero, O'Brien and showed the old movie maker his work. O'Brien hired him to work in his shop which led to Harryhausen becoming the chief FX tech on the movie, MIGHT JOE YOUNG, though he was never given screen credit for the movie.  With that success behind him, Ray went to on join forces with other producers to create amazing movies that would push Special Effects forward, allowing it to blend seamlessly with live action and thus be able to put actors in the same scenes with sword-wielding skeletons or have giant lizards came slithering through the streets of Rome.

In his brilliant career, fantasy movie fans soon began to recognize his touch and his films became classics of the genre from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, to his SINBAD trilogy and up to his last spectacular, the original CLASH OF THE TITANS.  It is no surprise he won several Oscars for his work and ultimately one for Lifetime Achievement.  He influenced two generations of movie makers and such luminaries as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have all paid homage to him with their own movies of the fantastic, testifying that without Ray Harryhausen, they mostly likely would not have been able to produce the movies they did.
And so he's gone, but his magical movies live on and will continue to entertain us for many more generations to come.  Rest in peace, Ray, and thank you from one of your millions of fans.

Ron – Over & Out.

Greetings Loyal Airmen, the Air Chief is busy once again packing up as the Airship 27 gets ready to take to the skies once more.  But thank heavens we don't leave until tomorrow.  Fort Collins was hit with a snow storm today, the FIRST DAYS OF MAY!!!  Crazy.
 
Tomorrow the Air Chief hooks up with Art Director Rob Davis and we attend the Oklahoma Fiction Writers' Conference were we will be presenting two workshops  (one on Friday afternoon and the other on Saturday morning) on Graphic Novels 101.  It should prove to be a blast.  Will have more to say about that next week.
But as we are rushed on this Wed. night, didn't want to leave the Flight Log totally void.

Above is what will be the cover to RON FORTIER'S TALES OF THE MACABRE # 4 now being assembled by Twilight Start Studios and drawn by the amazing Olivier Raymond of Quebec, Canada.  Later we will do a Redbud Studio edition.  We'll let you know when that one is on-sale.  And yes, that is suppose to be the Air Chief on the cover, with his latest creation, the sexy-silver Ms. Robot!!  Check out the license plate in on the limo.  Ha.

Till next week, be good and please, no more snow!!
Ron – Over & Out!