Greetings Loyal Airmen.  Here we go into the Labor Weekend and the unofficial end of the summer season.
Recently, the Air Chief's home town of Fort Collins, CO was invaded by hundreds of cyclist from around the world competing in the first USA Pro Challenge race; the course winding its way through our town and into the majestic Rocky Mountains.

Local Coloradan horsemen ride along cheering the cyclist in the first ever USA Pro Challenge as they make their way through Fort Collins, CO.  Photo courtesy of the local newspaper.

On the pulp fun side of things, Airship 27 Productions released its newest title this past week; THE BAGMAN vs THE WORLD'S FAIR by writer B.C. Bell.  This is the second book we've put out featuring Bell's humorous pulp hero and his first full length novel.  It's really a winner in every way.  The stunning cover above was rendered by artist Laura Givens with assistance by our Art Director/book designer, Rob Davis. It is getting tons of great comments all over the internet.  The book is now on sale at Amazon.com as a hard copy or digitally on Kindle, as well as a PDF download via our own Airship 27 website.  Please do check out this wonderful book; especially if you are a native of Chicago.

                                      
On the comic book front, the Air Chief and his colleague, writer Bill Gladman, are hard at work on the third Simon Pryce mystery comic book, PRYCE FOR THE ASKING – Man of Ash.  As we did with the previous two books, the story will be run as a weekly webstrip, a new page appearing every single week at (www.ComicRelated.com) until it is completed.  When done it will be collected as a print comic. Above is the cover image by the book's art team, penciler James Taylor and inker Ken McFarlane; Brant Fowler will provides the lettering and when the book is ready, this cover will be colored.  Stay tuned, mystery fans, we will let you know when page one goes up.  We love writing the adventures of this Detroit based private eye.

And finally we thought we'd provide you Loyal Airmen with another fine piece of illustrative artwork.  Ever since starting Airship 27 Productions, our fans, noticing our name and dirigible logo, have always asked us why we didn't do an airship anthology.  Well, after mulling it over for a while, the Air Chief finally decided to give it a go and we are now assembling the first volume our new ZEPPELIN TALES anthology.  Issue one will feature a short story by Jim Beard and a huge novella by Ian Watson.  Artist Mike Fyles has painted the cover and Portuguese artist, Pedro Cruz is providing the twelve interior illustration like the one above.  We are extremely excited about this new title and can't wait to bring it to all of you.  Stay tuned.

As most of  you Loyal Airmen know, this year, we debut our first Airship Crew Premium Patch at both our con visits, Windy City in Chicago and later Pulp Fest in Columbus.  Our fans could get a free book buying two of our titles; or paying $3 for one.  Well, the cons are over and we are finally offering the patches via mail orders for all you Loyal Airmen.  What you have to do is e-mail Art Director Rob Davis and he will let you know the complete price, which will include the $3 plus a some added fee for mailing….and how to pay him, either by check, or digitally via PayPal.  Rob's e-mail is (www.robmdavis@me.com)  Note, we only have a limited supply left, so contact him now and don't be left out.

As you can see things are always busy at Hangar 27.  This past week the Air Chief was invited to be a guest at yet another Colorado comic con; Rocky Mountain Con, to be held Nov. 9 & 10.  Proceeds for the con will go to the Aurora Rise fund, which helps victims of that awful movie house shooting incidents last year.  The con is in its early stages and if you would like to learn more about it, please visit their website (www.rockymountaincon.com) –

And that wraps up this week's Flight Log, Loyal Airmen, as ever, thanks so much for stopping by. See you back here next week.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, this past week was rough on all us lovers of pulp fiction as we lost one of the best pulp writers who ever put pen to paper.  Elmore “Dutch” Leonard passed away at the age of 87.

                               
                                                ELMORE LEONARD  Oct 11, 1925 – Aug 20, 2013

He was an American novelist and screenwriter.  His earliest published novels in the 1950s were westerns, but Leonard wen on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted to motion pictures; just as his westerns had.  From his short stories came such classic western movies as 3:10 TO YUMA and VALDEZ IS COMING.   Once he started writing crime fiction, he attracted a huge fan following, among them Hollywood writer/director Quentin Tarrentino who adapted his book JACKIE BROWN.

In the Air Chief's life long love of reading, there have only been a handful of writers who inspired us beyond simply writing good books.  Writers who were so good at their craft, them made it look easy and we wanted to emulate them; to learn from them in any way we could.  About a year ago the Air Chief wrote a short story called THE YELLOW DOG for an anthology called HOW THE WEST WEIRD Vol II – all the while we were writing it, we were keeping Leonard in mind, doing our best to try an copy his terse, economic style of prose.  It helped a lot making the story work so well.

                                          
                                                    Leonard and Timothy Olyphant

Over the years, several of Leonard's stories were the basis of television series; most of which failed and never lasted an entire season….until JUSTIFIED.  This Fox cable series is based on a Leonard's short story, FIRE IN THE HOLE, and the hero is a Kentucky Deputy U.S. Marshal played named Raylan Givens as played by actor Timothy Olyphant.  It is an extremely popular show and as of this writing, is in production for its fifth season on the network.  Happily Leonard lived to see and enjoy its success.

Again, its is always sad to lose our heroes and Elmore Leonard was one of ours for sure. But thank God we will always have his stories to read.  And if you Loyal Airmen reading these words have never had that pleasure, its truly time to rectify that mistake.  Go out and get one of his many books and get ready for a reading adventure of unbridled joy.  R.I.P. Mr. Leonard and thanks from this fan.

                            A PULP TEAM AS BROTHER BONES COLLIDES WITH LAZARUS GRAY

And lastly, we wrap up this week's Flight Log with some truly cool news.  A few weeks back, one of our good pals and colleagues, writer Barry Reese, came to us asking if he could use our character, Brother Bones, the Undead Avenger, in one of his short stories starring his own pulp hero, Lazarus Gray.  Being a huge fan of Barry's work, there was no way the Air Chief was going to nix this awesome idea.  Earlier this week Barry announced the team-up on his own blog much to excitement of both our fans.  As soon as he has finished with it and it becomes available in his new Lazarus Gary collection, we will happily let you know all about it right here.  We can't wait to read this crossover event.

And there you have it for another week, Loyal Airmen.  We've a couple of new Airship 27 Productions titles almost ready for the printers.  Hopefully we'll tell you all about them when you come back here next week. Till then, stay well and do good things.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we trust all of you are well and doing good things in the world.  What with Aug. whipping by, it will soon be Sept. and schools, from kindergarden to college opening their doors again. We truly wish all you wonderful students out there a great learning year ahead.  And as the theme of this particular Flight Log is, never give up, never say die, we hope you'll persevere to the end.

Over the years the Air Chief has written lots and lots and ..LOTS of stories, both prose and comics.  Many, happily, were lucky enough to finally get printed.  Still others, for various reasons never saw the light of day and have remained hidden away in my digital files.  When Rob Davis and the Air Chief launched the black and white comics anthology series, “Ron Fortier's Tales of the Macabre,” one of our goals was to dig out those old comics and finally get them in print for all you Loyal Airmen to enjoy.

Such is the case with LA FEMME LIBERTE, a 16 pg action adventure comic strip the Air Chief wrote a long time ago.  It told the story of a lovely, mysterious French resistance fighter and her people fighting the Nazis in Paris during the occupation in World War II.  It was dynamically illustrated by John Polacek who had earlier done a one shot Brother Bones comic with the Air Chief.  I loved the finished strip but ala, forces conspired against us and the project it was intended for collapsed and it was never printed.  Then a few short weeks ago, while rummaging through old digital files, we happily came across those sixteen pages and instantly realized it was time to get them out!

So we sat down and looked at the strips we had assembled for the next few issues of “Tales of the Macabre” and lo and behold it fit smoothly into issue #5 of that series.  (Note, issue # 4 is now being assembled.)   At the same time, we met a truly wonderful artist on-line named Dana Black who's style  impressed us greatly.  We contacted Dana and explained the anthology series and asked if he would be at all interested in drawing the cover for issue # 5 that will spotlight our lovely freedom fighter.  Dana is now doing up preliminary roughs and was kind enough to send one along (see above).  Stay tuned Loyal Airmen, this is going to be a truly fun comic.

Now on the pulp side of this topic, similar bumps and pot holes do materialize every now and then that interrupt the production of a particular title.  When we began Airship 27 Productions, we had started a series of new Green Lama stories going from an anthology to a full blown novel.  Then circumstances beyond our control intervened to stop production of the series, which was a real shame as he is one of the finest classic pulp characters of them all.  A few months passed and then the Air Chief received a call from a good friend who was personally involved with the character's legal status.  After an amiable chat, we were told that Airship 27 Productions would be allowed to continue our series of Green Lama anthologies.  At which point, Rob and the Air Chief opted to revamp our title and volume number of – THE GREEN LAMA – Mystic Warrior is now in production.  It will reprint two of the stories from the original first anthology and two brand new stories will round out the package.  All the art will be brand new including twelve superb black and white interior illustrations by Neil Foster (see above).  Fingers crossed, GREEN LAMA – Mystic Warrior will be out before year's end.  Wahooo.

And finally, we just wanted to share with you our love for the movie JACK REACHER based on the best selling new pulp books by Lee Child.  And yes, we just called the Reacher novels pulp.  Note, we haven't read any of them, but are still aware, thanks to colleagues who are big fans, (they call themselves Reachers' Creatures) we've learned enough about this hero to realize he is a classic “Lone Ranger” figure who moves across the land helping people in trouble.  Well, one of his many adventures, LONE SHOT, was finally brought to the big screen earlier in the year by actor Tom Cruise and his production company and they delivered one of the best, well paced, well directed and yes, well cast thrillers the Air Chief has seen in a long, long time.  Last week we finally picked up the Blu-ray disc and viewing it a second time, we were just as entertained as when we'd first watched it in the movie house.  Kudos to Cruise and writer/director Ralph McQuarrie for giving us a thinking man's thriller.  Watching the extra documentaries on the film's production, we were truly impressed with the company's respect for writer Lee Child and how they sincerely did their best to bring the heart and soul of his character to the big screen.  Both the Air Chief and Valerie give JACK REACHER major thumbs up.  We truly hope they do another one soon.

And that, Loyal Airmen, is our Flight Log for this week.  As ever, thanks for stopping by and stay well, we will endeavor to be back here next Friday. Till then, take care,
Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, we have a truly mixed bag of news for you all this week.  So much so we're reminded of the Clint Eastwood spaghetti wester, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”  Only we've opted to entitled ours, “The Goof, the Silly and the Audio.”  And as much as it hurts, we really need to begin with the Big Goof and get it out of the way.

Two weeks ago we were thrilled to announce the release of our newest Mr. Jigsaw Man of a Thousand Parts.  We had the book at Pulp Fest and sold a few copies there.  Sadly, we never actually looked through a copy and it was only after we came back home that we released there had been a mix-up at the printers and several of the pages were printed out of order.  So when you opened the cover to start reading, you were in fact reading page # 2.  This is bad enough as is, but if you'll recall this particular issue had a time-travel story and it required compete attention to each and ever page.  Talk about being bummed out.  Rob Davis quickly went back to the printers on-line and corrected the files and as of now, any copies you do purchase at (www.IndyPlanet.com) are all good copies.  But if you were unfortunate enough to grab one of those earlier bad copies, we will make it good for you.  Simply drop us an e-mail with your mailing address and tell us on which page in the book the first page actually appears.  Do that and we will send a brand new, good copy of the issue. You may keep the mistake-book.  Who knows, it might be a collector's item some day.

                                           
                                                                 ART BY JIM GALLO
Now for the silly fun, check out the very cool illustration above.  As most of you know, the Air Chief hosts a weekly internet podcast called ZONE 4 along with pals Brant Fowler, Gordon Dymowski and John Wilson. On this particular show we are referred to as Captain Ron.  Well, out of the blue, one of our loyal listeners, while enjoying the show, took out his iPad and did up this digital portrait of us.  We were truly delighted when he posted it on the Zone 4 Facebook page and have shared it with our family and friends.  Valerie thought it was a pure hoot.  Now tell me we don't look ready for adventure.  Ha.

                                        
 
Speaking of adventure, we are thrilled to announced our newest pulp book, SINBAD – The New Voyages Vol II.  The success of Volume I last year was enough encouragement for us to put together this follow up book with three more new tales of this classic hero done in the Ray Harryhausen fashion.  Our Sinbad is black with an international crew we think you'll love.  This volume contains a long novella by Ed Erdelac and two short stories, one by Erwin K.Roberts and the other by Shelby Vick.  It is now on sale at Amazon in both hard copy and as a digital e-book for their Kindle. We hope you'll give it a look see.

And lastly we leave with the really big news of the past week.  We are doing a follow up audio-book with the super folks at Dynamic Ram Audio.  Having received some wonderful reviews of our first Captain Hazzard audio book, “Python Men of the Lost City,” on sale at (www.Audible.com) one of the largest providers of audio book on the internet, plus our respective websites.  Dynamic Audios Chief, Sound Engineer Chris Barnes agreed it was time to do a recording of the second book in the series, “The Citadel of Fear,” which we co-wrote with pal Martin Powell.  The best part of all this was securing the services of the super talented voice actor, Joe Stofko, of Connecticut.  Joe is a veteran theater actor and “Python Men of the Lost City” was his first ever audio book reading and he totally nailed it.  Folks who have it rave about his ability to convey action and suspense throughout.  We've just heard Chapter 1 of “Citadel of Fear” and couldn't be any happier.  We'll let you know when it is done and available for sale.

And there you have it for another week, Loyal Airmen, with its usual ups and downs.  As a famous person once said, every time a positive soul has to take a step backwards, they merely shrug and do the Cha Cha.
We think that pretty much sums it all about.  Take care and we'll see you back here next week.
Ron Over & Out!

Well, Loyal Airmen, another Pulp Fest has come and gone and as ever, the Air Chief had a blast.  It truly is one of the most fun packed pulp shows out there and Rob Davis and yours truly look forward to it every year and are never disappointed by the show and turn out of so many Loyal Airmen.

Here's a good shot of Airship 27 Productions Art Director Rob Davis and yours truly, the Air Chief early Saturday morning after we had set up and before they opened the doors to let in the crowds waiting in the hall.  Look at that, we had THREE tables this year, full of pulps, comics, premium patches and….for the first time ever, boxed sets of our first Airship 27 Audio Book – Captain Hazzard Python Men of the Lost City!! Rob did such an amazing job of putting those together.  Each handsomely designed case comes with four labeled disc containing six hours of audio thrills as read by voice actor Joe Stofko.  Note, as this was our first time offering these, we only brought five to the show.  We sold four!!  Wahoo.

And for the fourth year in a row, the Air Chief hosted the New Pulp Panel, one of half a dozen panels presented over the course of the weekend.  That's the Air Chief up front after having made introductions to my stellar panel.  From left to right on the stage we had writers, Jim Beard, Rich Lai, Frank Schildiner and Win Scott Eckert.  Our topic was The Future of New Pulp and it was a truly lively discussions that covered many thought provoking avenues concerning the media we all love so dearly.  The audience was most receptive and we're hoping this continues to be a regular feature at Pulp Fest.

And of course while we were away in Columbus, our good friends at Pro Se Productions were busy releasing their latest quarterly pulp magazine, Pro Sen Presents # 19 with a Brother Bones cover story as written by yours truly and drawn by Rob.  A tip of the hat to publisher Tommy Hancock, editor Lee Housteon Jr. and designer Sean Ali for a magnificent job.  Note, the book is available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble on-lines.

And as an extra treat for all of you, here's the interior illustration that appears before the prose, as whipped up by Sean.  The guy has too much talent, ah.  We love this piece too.  Oh, and while on the subject of the Undead Avenger, several nights ago a colleague and good pal, wrote requesting to use him in a new story he is writing about his own pulp hero; sort of featuring Brother Bones as a guest hero.  We were only too delighted to give this friend the green light to use our character.  Not giving away anything yet, as we do want to keep it under wraps until the story is out.

On the comics-front, Canadian artist Olivier Raymond continues to whip up sketches and pin-ups of the character Satin Wei, who will be starring in her own one shot comic special called SATIN'S WAYS.  Olivier is doing all the art and lettering for this 48 page crime caper and we think you Loyal Airmen are going to love it once it is out.

Lastly, today's e-mail brought us a wonderful invitation from the people at Mile High Comics in Denver, the world's biggest comic book shop.  Seems they are having a Comicpalooza on Sat. afternoon Sept. 15th with fifteen comic creators on hand to sign their wares for the fans, yours truly among them.  We'll keep you posted as the date nears and find out who else will be joining us there for the fun.

And there you have it, Loyal Airmen.  Our long traveling plans have successfully concluded for this year on a truly high note.  Who knows what 1024 will bring?  As ever thanks for stopping by, see you here next week.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, as we get ready to fly out to Columbus, Ohio, for the annual Pulp Fest convention lots of very, very cool things have happened in the past week that we had to share with you.  Airship 27 Productions now has a Marketing Director!  He is Michael Vance, an experienced writer-editor whose main task will be the marketing and promoting of all Airship 27 Production titles and their creators.

                  
           MICHAEL VANCE AIRSHIP 27 MARKETING DIRECTOR
To that end, Michael will be sending lots and lots…and lots of News Releases featuring articles about our company and interviews with are super pulp writers and artists.  And we'd very much like all you Loyal Airmen to stay up with all this.  You can do so by writing Michael at (miklvance@yahoo.com) and asking him to put you on the Airship 27 News Releases List.  He'll be happy to oblige you.   Believe, Michael's addition to the staff means lots of bigger and better things for the old Airship 27 and the Air Chief and Art Director, Rob Davis, couldn't be happier to have him aboard.

To that end, we've also created a dedicated Airship 27 blog-site where all of Michael's News Releases and other important news item will be posted.  You can find it here (www.airship27.blogspot.com)  We hope you'll check it out.

We would also like to take a moment to thank Loyal Airmen Sarah Shepherdon who took time out for her own busy affairs to write us a truly wonderful letter telling us how much she has enjoyed our Robin Hood series by writer I.A. Watson and all of Rob's wonderful illustrations that graced those three books. This coming after Sarah had read the latest, ROBIN HOOD – Freedom's Outlaw (now on sale at Amazon in both hard copy and on Kindle).  Sincerely Loyal Airmen, WE LOVE getting your letters, please keep them coming.  It's how we know we're doing it right.

                                   
                                          DART & THE BLACK SCORPION
Many years ago, long after the Air Chief had wrapped up his stint on the Now Comics Green Hornet series, he was contacted by Canadian comics writer, David Darrigo about co-writing a black city avenger ala the Green Hornet.  Darrigo wanted to call him the Black Scorpion and his secret identity would be that of a big city newspaper publisher.  Wanting me to help create it, he allowed me to whip up the Black Scorpion's sidekick and the Air Chief invented a white teenage orphan called THE DART.  Then we produced three Black Scorpion comics for Darrigo's Special Studio imprint, both of us writing under the pen-name of George Stryker.  Each issue contained two 16 page stories, one by Darrigo and one by the Air Chief. 

Earlier this past week a friend posted a picture on Facebook showing all three covers of those comics and it truly sent us on a trip down memory lane.  Somewhere in the process of talking about this on Facebook, a friend, one Glenn Porzig mentioned not only having been a big fan of that short-lived series but that he had actually dressed up like the Dart one Halloween.  We were totally shocked.  Never in our long comics writing career had anyone every dressed up like one of our original characters.  Oh sure, we'd seen plenty of Green Hornets etc. but again, no one every wore a costume based on something created solely by the Air Chief and here was Glenn telling us he had done so.  We immediately if he had any photos to which he replied no….but, he did have one of the mask and hat he'd put together.

                               
                                   THE DART'S MASK & HAT
And here it is.  The Air Chief was totally thrilled and we can't thank Glenn enough for sharing this with us.  Sometimes being a comics creator is just too-too much fun.

And there you have, Loyal Airmen, for another week. Thanks as ever for stopping by. We hope to see many of you in Columbus over the next four day.  Take care and we'll be back here in seven days.
Ron Over & Out!

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.
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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.