Greeting Loyal Airmen, we're playing a bit of catch-up this morning as we were hoping to preview a new Airship 27 Productions title this week but alas things got away from us. Hopefully we'll have everything squared away by next week's Flight Log and can wow you then.  Chuckle.

One of the Air Chief's most popular pulp creations is Brother Bones – The Undead Avenger as seen above in a gorgeous illustration by Rob Davis.  To date we've put out one collection of his adventures in the fictional west coast city of Cape Noire which included seven stories.  At present the Air Chief is writing new adventures that will fill a second volume and as of yesterday we've reached the half way mark.  Last year we wrote to short Brother Bones tales that were published by Tommy Hancock's Pro Se Productions; The Butcher's Festival and The Bruiser From Bavaria.  Yesterday, after two weeks of hammering away at this old PC, we wrapped up perhaps the longest Bones tale ever, The Plastic Army.  Do a quick tally, we now have over 35,000 words of new Bones stories.  Our goal for each book is 60,000, so we've crossed the half-way mark.  Hopefully as the year roles on, the Air Chief will be able to tap his muse a few more times and get a few others on paper to reach that goal and have a second anthology ready.

Note, there is also a full length Brother Bones novel in the works by a super talented writer named Roman Leary. Stay tuned, as that particular book should be coming your way in a few more months.  Fingers crossed.

Oh, and if you are new to these pages, there is a one shot Brother Bones comic still available from (www.IndyPlanet.com) – written by the Air Chief with art by John Polacek.  Also there will be a new 7 pg Brother Bones comic strip featured in the anthology book ALL STAR PULP COMICS # 2, again coming later this year.  As we said, this is going to be his year.

Having wrapped up a long (18,000 words) Brother Bones pulp story, what's up next on the Air Chief's agenda? Well, it's high time we got to writing Mr.Jigsaw Man of a Thousands Part issue #11.  Ten came out nearly a year ago and our Jiggy fans have been rightly frustrated in the long delay between issues.  So rest easy, we've got a fun idea for the new issue and again, we start writing it today. 

Busy, busy, busy. It truly never stops.  To which we say, thank you God.  The alternative to being too busy….is being bored with nothing to do.  Will pass on that.  As ever thanks for stopping by and we'll see you back here in next Friday.

Ron – Over & Out!

Well, Loyal Airmen, the Football Super Bowl has come and gone.  We trust those of you who are fans of the sport truly enjoyed what was a really tense and close contest.  Sincerely, we congratulate the Baltimore Ravens on their second Super Bowl Championship.  But honestly, we are happy to see their season done as the Air Chief is diehard baseball fan and as most of you are aware, a loyal member of Red Sox Nation. What with a new, enthusiastic John Farrell as the manager this year, one can only hope the team will put their last two lackluster seasons far behind them and return to their winning ways.

Pitchers report to the new Red Sox sports center in Ft. Myers, Florida this coming Monday, Feb. 11.  Positions players arrive three days later on the 14th.  Loyal Airmen, your Air Chief is truly ready for some baseball.

                    
On the pulp side of things, the cover photo above popped up in our e-mail this afternoon and we were thrilled.  About a year ago, writer Kane Gilmour and artist Scott P. Vaughn created an internet web comic strip called WARBIRDS OF MARS (go google it after reading this…you'll be glad you did).  The idea was that some time during World War II, Martians invaded Earth and joined forces with the Nazis. With their advanced alien technology, the Third Reich and the Martians invaded America and took over nearly half of it.  But of course American military forces did not give up the fight and the strip is all about their continued battle with masked secret agents, brave fighter pilots and lovely femme fatales all fighting to preserve the USA and defeat the bad guys.

The Air Chief, upon discovering this webstrip became an instant fan and began telling all his friends about it. Eventually we began an exchange of letters with the creators.  We learned they were planning on doing a prose anthology featuring various writers all telling stories that take place in the world of WARBIRDS and they graciously invited us to contribute to this collection.  We totally jumped on that wagon and within weeks had whipped up something called “The Monsters of Adobe Wells.”  Scott & Kane approved it is one of the fifteen stories in the book, which they just announced today will be out in May.  The great cover above is by Scott and its a humdinger, just like all his work on the strip every week.  We are truly excited to be a part of this project and we'll let you know when you can go out and pick up a copy.

Finally, the big news this week was the announcement of the PULP ARK AWARDS Nominations.  The Air Chief was nominated for several pulps tales in the Best Short Story category and also for Best Writer, which is most humbling.  We thank everyone who supported us in these nominations.  But the most surprising category nod came in the Best Pulp Comic section as it had PRICE FOR THE ASKING there.  This is a private eye series created by the Air Chief and his pal, Bill Gladman.  We've put out two issues thus far, the first illustrated by artist Brian Latimer and the second (cover above) by Rob Davis.  To have this comic earn a nomination in these awards was truly an unexpected joy.  Voting ends March 15th at which time the winners will be announced and their awards handed out at this year's Pulp Ark Convention in Arkansas.  We congratulate all the nominees and wish everyone good luck in the voting.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen.  A final warning, Valentine's Day is almost here. Go out and get that special someone something that truly says, I love you!  Till next week,
Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, here we are in February and most of you are probably scrambling around to find the right gift for your significant other in time for Saint Valentine's Day.  We certainly wish you all in the luck in the world with that. And do remember, the simple standards like a dozen red roses and a box of chocolates still do the trick in creating a little romantic magic.

                             
February is also Black History Month in which we applaud African Americans and their priceless contributions to our great country.  After the end of the Civil War, freed slaves would have had every right to pack up their few belongings and leave a country that had so cruelly mistreated and abused them for decades.  They didn't owe America anything.  But they did not go down that path of hatred and revenge, rather they rolled up their sleeves and proceeded to do their best in making this country grow and prosper.  One such freed slaves was Bass Reeves, a U.S. Deputy Marshal in the badlands of Oklahoma prior to its becoming a state. In the course of his thirty-two year career he became the most successful western lawman of all times.

For several years now the Air Chief and artist Rob Davis (who did the pin-up above colored by Anthony Lee) have been hoping to one day produce a full-blown graphic novel detailing the Life & Times of Bass Reeves. Sadly that opportunity has yet to afford itself as other priorities have kept both of us too busy to do such a project justice.  Still we continue to dream and hope that one day we will get it done.

                             
                                          Cover Art by Adam Shaw

Several months ago the Air Chief received an invitation from his friend and colleague, Tommy Hancock who manages Pro Se Production, another truly fine New Pulp Publisher.  Tommy had hooked up with writer/editor Gary Phillips to do a new pulp anthology that would feature all African American heroes.  Even though slavery was gone, racism continued to thrive in our country long after the end of the Civil War and was rampant in the 20s and 30s during the era of the pulps.  It is almost impossible to find any minority character in those stories and if you do, you'll find them depicted as being slow and shiftless.  Honestly, it is difficult to read these tales as those hateful stereotypes were so appalling.  So it is that the writers of the New Pulp Movement, good folks like Tommy and many others are doing their best to correct these injustices by producing great pulp tales with heroes of all races.

Tommy's new anthology, due out later this month, is titled BLACK PULP (that's the cover above sans design or logo) and has a truly all star cast of contributors to include an essay by Walter Mosley and stories by Joe R.Landsdale, Gary Phillips, Charles Saunders, Derrick Ferguson and many others.  And yes, there is one by the Air Chief called, “The Lawman.”  So if you've put two and two together, you know the Air Chief took this golden opportunity to finally write a Bass Reeves story.  It was both a thrill and honor to do so for this great collection.  We will let you all know when it is available and how to grab a copy.

                     
Meanwhile we at Airship 27 Productions are busy working on dozens of new and exciting titles as well.  One of these new anthologies, QUATERMAIN – The New Adventures – features Alan Quatermain, the turn of the century African big hunter created by novelist H. Ridder Haggard who appeared in several of Haggard's books to include the often times filmed, “King Solomon's Mines,” and “She.”  The book will feature two novellas, one by James Palmer and the other Aaron Smith.  Art Director Rob Davis whipped up a truly beautiful sketch which is going to be adapted/painted by artist Ingrid Hardy for the cover.  That sketch is above.  Ingrid has done several of our covers in the past, to include one of Sherlock Holmes; her most recent was the new Black Bat Mystery Vol II.  We can't wait to see her bring this image to colorful life.

And there you have it for our first Flight Log of Feb, Loyal Airmen.  As ever, thanks for stopping by and we'll see you right back here in seven days.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we've got some really cool bits to share with you this week, so let's jump right into them.

Our first Airship 27 Productions title of the year is now on sale!  SHERLOCK HOLMES – CONSULTING DETECTIVE is now on sale at Amazon, on Kindle and at (www.IndyPlanet.com) via our website which you can access by simply clicking on the airship dirigible logo to the upper left of this column.  This is the fourth year in a row we've kicked off the new year with a Sherlock Holmes title and its a tradition we hope to maintain for a long time to come. This particular series is by far the most successful we've ever produced and Sherlock Holmes around the world continue to want more.  This volume has five new tales of the Great Detective and Dr.Watson as written by Andrew Salmon, Brad Sinor, Aaron Smith, Bill Thinnes and Ian Watson. As ever our Art Director Rob Davis provides the interior illustrations and professional artist Chad Hardin provided that amazingly beautiful cover you see above.  So what are you waiting for, heading on over to Amazon and order up a copy. As ever, thanks so much for all your support.

Now for something totally different and a first for us at Airship 27 Productions.  In early May, Rob and the Air Chief will be guests at the Oklahoma Fiction Writers Inc. Conference.  We will be presenting two ninety minute workshops HOW TO MAKE A GRAPHIC NOVEL.  Naturally the Air Chief will be speaking about the scripting aspects and Rob will offer up his insights on how to interpret a script graphically.  We decided we would use our erotic horror novel, DAUGHTER OF DRACULA to illustrate the points we will be lecturing on .  At the time of the invitation we had agreed we would bring copies of the graphic novel to sell at the conference. Then upon reflection, we realized having a copy of the actual script the Air Chief wrote available to writers wanting to learn the process would be an invaluable tool as well. Thus Rob proceed to take my original script, dress it up design-wise, ad a few panels throughout as illustrations and viola, last week we produced DAUGHTER OF DRACULA – The Script.  See the very neat cover above. The book is available for sale now at Amazon.  Finally, any of you Loyal Airman living near Oklahoma City who might want to learn more about the conference and possibly attend, here is the link to their website, show dates etc.

Official OWFI page (http://www.owfi.org/)
The 2013 OWFI Conference May 2-4
Embassy Suites Norman
2501 Conference Drive
Tel (1-405-364-8040)

We be great to see some Loyal Airmen at this wonderful event.  Rob and the Air Chief are really excited about this.

                                        
                                               WRITER – PRODUCER – J.J. ABRAMS

Finally, we are going to close out this week's Flight Log with a truly exciting piece of news that truly made us smile.  One of favorite Hollywood writer-producers is J.J. Abrams.  The Air Chief can't say enough about this creative individual responsible for some  of our favorite TV series from ALIAS, to LOST, FRINGE and PERSON OF INTEREST.  For the past four and a half years, FRINGE was our all time favorite sci-fi series and we were blown away by last week's two-hour finale. It was magnificent writing as it has been from day one.

Two years ago Abrams again impressed us greatly by rebooting the tired old Star Trek franchise at the movies and making it relevant and fun once again.  This coming May his second entry into this franchise will come out and we can't wait to see it.

So it has just been announced that Abrams has signed on to write/direct the brand new 7th STAR WARS movie for Disney Films which recently acquired all of Lucas Film and its Industrial Light & Magic special effects house.  Disney had then announced they wanted a new Star Wars film out in 2015 and began the hunt for a director. And now it is official, Abrams will be at the helm of this eagerly anticipated movie.  Which is truly amazing as now he is the man controlling the destines of two of the most recognizable sci-fi franchises in the history of sci-fi cinema, both Star Trek and Star Wars.  The Air Chief can only imagine the buzz this will create throughout fandom and the hype-machine that will start to go into hyper-drive starting now as to what this new Star Wars movie will be all about.  Hang it there Loyal Airmen, we are in for a truly amazing ride.

And there you have it for this week, Loyal Airmen. As ever thanks for stopping by and for supporting our efforts.  Take care and stay warm.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, here we are again with another Flight Log looking at the culture world for all its beauty and its ugliness.  This week the Air Chief needs to vent a wee bit at the news that the Sci-Fi Channel has canceled easily its finest series ever, ALPHAS!

For two season this show brought us taut, suspenseful tales in an adult perspective on the age-old comic book theory of super-beings.  This was X-Men done realistically, better than of the big-budget films thus far produced.  One of the reasons cited for cancellation was that the show went from 2 million viewers its first season down to only 1 million its second year.  The Air Chief still boggles at this logic. Considering Sci-Fi's less than stellar record, don't these people know 1 million viewers was a freakin' SUCCESS for them?  And the frustration continues in that they not only cancelled the show, but did so in a way that leave's the season two cliff-hanger, which had half the cast left for dead, now forever unresolved.  Had they been kind to their 1 million fans, they would have at least considered a special made-for-TV one shot movie to wrap things up.  No, instead they opted to annoy 1 million fans.  Way to go, Sci-Fi Channel.  Duh.

On a much happier note, writer Roman Leary, a truly talented soul, surprised the Air Chief over the holidays by sending him a book he had been wanting to read and a DVD documentary on the pulp avenger THE SHADOW we didn't even know existed.  See the cover above.  This is a ten-part, two hour documentary explaining the history of this famous character, his creator and all the people who portrayed him both on the radio and in later films. It is truly a fun, informative piece and we can't recommend it highly enough. Again its available at Amazon and thanks Roman, we truly enjoyed this marvelous surprise gift.

Finally we'll end this week's entry with a truly exciting piece of news.  One of the Air Chief's all time favorite horror films is the classic FRANKENSTEIN.  Seen above as portrayed by the great Boris Karloff.  Well, very recently we found an open call for comic creators to contribute either a story or art to a new comic anthology whose theme is the Frankenstein Monster!!  Intrigued by the concept, we wrote the editor of the project and they happily asked us to submit a story idea.  We did, they approved it and gave us the green light to write and submit it.  The Air Chief is wound for sound about this. It will be an eight page tale and after it is approved by the editor, we'll get into talking about who will illustrate it.  Stay tuned, we'll as ever keep you posted.

And that, Loyal Airmen, wraps up another Jan. Flight Log.  Stay well and out of trouble.  Big Brother is watching you.  Oh, Yeah.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, things have been busy as ever here at the old Hangar 27.  Still, we do find some time to get away and sneak in a few hours to read a good book or watch movies.  Two of the Air Chief's favorite pastimes.  But before we talk about some movies, old and new, we have a very cool tale to share with you.

Over the years, we've had the good fortune to teach small classes on How To Write Comics.  Early on, in trying to help our students learn the formats of full script writing, we wrote a short four page tale called ROBOT-GUY. It was a humorous ditty paying homage to those wonderful old Golden Age heroes. It featured a robot hero and the lovely scientist, Candace “Candy” Kane who invented him.  We would pass these out to our writing students so they could see first hand how a comic script is written.  Now at the same time we also had the opportunity to expand this course when fortunate enough to hook up with a professional artist. Then the course would double in scope and become a How To Write & Draw Comics class.  Whereas in this course, we actually had everyone, both writers and artists, try their hands at actually drawing the Robot-Guy story. Of course we had no expectations of the writers giving us anything but stick figures, whereas our young artists turned in some really – really cool art pages.

Now one of these art students back in New Hampshire was a talented fellow named David Freeman. Since moving to Colorado we'd stayed connected via Facebook and e-mail, but time, as it always does, rolled on and the Air Chief lost touch with what David was up to. Then two weeks ago David writes to say he recently remembered the old Robot-Guy story he'd had to do in our class. On a whim he decided to draw a pin-up of the characters giving them a fresh look.  He'd since lost the script and his old pages.  Well, what he drew was nothing short of fantastic.  When the Air Chief saw it, he about fell out of his chair. We immediately posted this on Facebook and within hours one of the best inkers in the business, Mark Stegbauer, saw the piece and asked to ink it for us. Wow. Once inked, we re-posted it and then another FB creator, Apriyadi Kusbriantoro asked to color it. We were obviously on a roll.  And finally, our amigo Rob Davis turned in a logo for it.

These folks are now talking of having prints made up of this or even tee-shirts to sell at cons.  Hmmm, we'll give it some thought.  More importantly, the Air Chief convinced David to re-draw that four page story and Mark is on board to ink it.  Once we find a letterer, we are going to get it published in one of our future issues of RON FORTIER'S TALES OF THE MACABRE.  And who knows, there could be a whole new Robot-Guy comic book series in the works.  What do you think?

Getting back to that movie topic, the Air Chief has loved movies ever since he was a little boy. All kinds of movies and we have a very special fondness for the black and white films of the 30s, 40s and 50s.  Thus we were delighted to get the above two collections from Santa this past Christmas.  As most of you know, the Cisco Kid was a western hero created by writer O'Henry and most remember him from the 1950s TV series starring Duncan Reynaldo.  What most don't know is that Monogram did several movies starring the Cisco Kid; some starred Ceasar Romero (the Joker on the Adam West Batman TV show) and while others featured Gilbert Roland. Well, VCI released all six of Roland's Cisco Kid movies in this two disc set.  Having viewed the first two, we are having a blast. Roland plays him with a roguish cavalier quality that is too much fun.  We hope some day VCI does the same with the Romero movies.

The Thin Man was the creation of popular mystery writer Dashiel Hammett.  Written as a stand alone novel, when it came to the big screen with William Powell and Myrna Loy playing the sleuthing Nick & Nora Charles, the movie was a huge success.  Enough so that the studio went back to Hammett urging him to write more screenplays featuring this crime-solving pair and he happily acquiesced, resulting in five more outings for a total of six Thin Man adventures.  This set from Warner Bros. has them all plus a special documentary disc relating the cinema histories of both Powell and Loy.  Believe the Air Chief, no classier detectives ever graced a silver screen than Nick & Nora Charles.

Moving on to the new stuff.  While shopping with Valerie this morning, the Air Chief picked up these new titles, one an action caper starring our favorite tough-guy star, Jason Statham and other a cool looking science fiction story connected with the highly popular HALO video game our grandson, Alex, and millions of other players his age are hooked on. We've been fascinated with this military sci-fi series, though not ourselves gamers, and a few years ago bought the very well made animated Halo movie.  We are anxious to watch both of these and keep our fingers crossed they deliver the fun we think they will.

Finally, the Air Chief this past week was a guest on a very popular internet podcast show called Earth Station One. At one point in the program, one of the host asked if we had any dream we'd yet to realize. Easy question. Loving movies so much, we still hope to one day see something we've written, be it a comic character or pulp hero, brought to life in a movie.  Hey, life is always about reaching for the stars.  If you are going to dream, dream big.  Till next week, be good, be safe and keep on dreaming.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen to our first Flight Log Entry of the new year.  We trust you all had a great holiday and are all geared up for all the exciting and wonderful things coming down the road in 2013.  Airship 27 Productions has tons of great new titles coming your way and once again the Air Chief and Art Director Rob Davis have been making plans for our convention appearances.  Leading it off will be the Windy City Paper & Pulp Show now in its 13th year.  This will be our seventh year in attendance.  And our first year booking two tables. At last year's show we realized just how much we had grown since starting up over six years ago and with more than fifty titles in our catalog, that one lone table was really getting crowded fast. It was time to bite the bullet, get a second table and spread out our gorgeous books for all attendees to get a really good look at.

Of course this having extra space also opened up a rather fun opportunity for us. You see, three of the writers who penned titles for us last year will be at the show and all of them asked if they could help out in some way.  The more we kept thinking about their generous offer, the more a really cool idea took shape and we contacted the con's promoter asking them if we could schedule “author signings” at the show. To our delight they gave us an enthusiastic thumbs up.

The Windy City Paper & Pulp Show runs from April 12th to the 14th.  On Saturday, April 13th, three of our finest New Pulp writers will be appearing at the Airship 27 Productions table to sell and autograph copies of their wonderful books.

DAVID C. SMITH – CALL OF SHADOWS (11 a.m. to 12 Noon)
JOE BONADONNA – THREE AGAINST THE STARS  (1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.)
TERRENCE McCAULEY – PROHIBITION (4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.)

All three of these gentlemen are fantastic writers and eager to meet fellow pulp fans. We truly hope many of our Loyal Airmen will start making plans to come to Chicago and join us for this truly great event.  Note, as we have done in the past three years, we will also be presenting the Pulp Factory Awards for 2012 on Friday evening just prior to the con's big auction.  Will give you more details as we get closer to the show.  And lastly, Rob and the Air Chief has come up with a rather unique Airship 27 “premium” we will be debuting for the first time at the con. Trust me, Loyal Airmen, you are going to love this item.  The Air Chief will give with the full details in the Flight Log prior to the show, so stay tuned.

                                        
                                                  ART BY WILL MEUGNIOT
On the comic side of things, as many of you will recall, over a year ago we put together a giant black and white comic book featuring new strips starring new and classic pulp heroes, it was entitled AIRSHIP 27 Presents ALL STAR COMICS.  It proved to be a big hit and went on to win the Pulp Ark Award for Best Pulp Comic of 2011.  Well, over the past year, Rob Davis and the Air Chief have slowly been accumulating another half dozen of truly gorgeous new strips for a second volume of ALL STAR PULP COMICS.  This one will feature such characters as Ki-Gor the Jungle Lord and his mate, Helene.  That's her above, fighting alongside Derrick Ferguson's pulp hero, Dillon.  This beautiful cover art was provided for us by pro artist Will Meugniot. Beside these two characters, you'll find a Lance Star – Sky Ranger story, a Brother Bones tale and several others.  Issue one truly set the quality bar high and we were determined to either equal or surpass it with this second issue.  As it nears completion, will give you more information on how to snag a copy.

And that's it for this first Flight Log of 2013, Loyal Airmen.  As you can see, things are shaping up to be an exciting year head, that is our continued wish for all of you.  And ever thanks for stopping by and your wonderful support,

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, we trust you and your families had a super Christmas and that Santa was extra wonderful to all of you. Christmas morning our Christmas Tree was nearly buried under brightly packaged boxes all full of wonderful surprises.  Among those for the Air Chief was a Star Trek Enterprise pizza-cutter. We kid you not. That had to be the wildest surprise of all. There were several new Blu-ray DVD movies to include the new MIB3 (Men In Black) which we watched the following night and enjoyed immensely. A truly fun sci-fi flick. Oh, can't forget my Green Lantern Pez dispenser.  Too cool.  Aviation wise the Air Chief received a die-cast model of a Mustang P-47-D made famous by the Red Tails (The African American Squadron) that flew in World War II.  It now sits on my writing desk.  And of course lots and lots of other cool things.  Santa must have known the Air Chief was a “good boy” in 2012.

Hard to believe we are only a few days away from saying to goodbye to yet another year.  2013 is just around the calendar.  Guess those poor Mayans weren't as good at predictions as they were in pyramid building.  Oh, well. Time does march on, as you can see by the image above.  We've been refitting the old Airship 27 and getting her ready to fly longer and higher in the New Year.  We've tons of great books in store for all you pulp lovers out there.

                                            
One of those projects now in the works will be our very first PHANTOM DETECTIVE anthology.  See Rob Davis' marvelous sketch above.  If the name sounds famaliar it is because he truly was one of the more popular classic pulp heroes with his own monthly magazine. The thing about him that most people recall is how they would portray him on the covers in a silk top hat and tuxedo.  Pretty silly when one thinks about it and the truth is he never ever appeared in that ridiculous outfit in the actual stories in the mag.  Rather he wore top coat and fedora with a domino mask just as Rob has drawn him here. We are excited about doing this fan favorite and have assembled what we consider the cream-of-the-crop amongst today's New Pulp writers to bring you his new adventures. They include Barry Reese, Derrick Ferguson, Tommy Hancock and Gary Lovisi; with illustrations by Mr. Davis of course.  We truly think this is going to be of our shining stars of the new year. Stay tuned.

                                         
                                     SHERLOCK HOLMES sketch by Chad Hardin

Another tradition here at Airship 27 Productions is starting each new year with a new Sherlock Holmes book.  We've done ever since we started the company and its been kind of our good luck tradition and 2013 will certainly not break that chain.  Our first title of the new year will be our forth volume of SHERLOCK HOLMES  Consulting Detective; easily our most popular series sales-wise.  The first three books in this series continue to sell and have never diminished in popularity all attesting to the love for these characters shared by fans around the world.  Volume Four will sport a painted cover by the amazing Chad Hardin; above is his preliminary sketch and we love it.  Trust the Air Chief, the finished, colored piece is beautiful.  So that what you have to look forward to in just a few weeks, Loyal Airmen, five brand new adventures of Holmes and Watson brought to you by the folks who put high adventure back into fiction.

And finally, as many of you know, the Air Chief writes a book review column, PULP FICTION REVIEWS (see the link in the heading paragraph above).  Recently we read and reviewed “Archie Meets Nero Wolfe” by Robert Goldsborough.  Being big time fans of the original Rex Stout Nero Wolfe books, we were delighted that Goldsborough took it upon himself to go back in time and tells us the story of how two of mystery fictions characters met for the very first time.  This book is so enjoyable, we can't recommend enough and hope you'll check it out.

That's it, Loyal Airmen, again, thanks for stopping by and for all your continued support. It means to world to us. Happy New Year to you and yours, party wisely, never ever drink and drive….please, we want you here for here next week. Till then, be good and God bless you all.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen and here we go with out last Flight Log before Christmas.  We hope you've all been enjoying n the holiday festivities with your friends, families and other loved ones. It truly is a wonderful time of the year.  Here in Fort Collins, we finally got some snow yesterday and though it really wasn't much, at least it gave the landscape that Christmas look.

At the end of lasts week, Airship 27 Productions released its 16th and final book of the year.  It's a humdinger of a gangster novel set in New York in the 1930s and was written by Terrence McCauley.  The art provided for both the nine interior illustrations and that gorgeous color cover you see above were all the work of Scottish artist Rob Moran who has an affinity for these kinds of noir gangster images.  We should also note that the gorgeous coloring provided for this image was done by artist Shannon Hall, another regular here at Hangar 27 and the design, logo etc. were the efforts of our loyal Art Director, Rob Davis.   PROHIBITION is available form our website as a PDF download and from Amazon as a hard copy and through them for Kindle.  So as you can see there are multiple ways to obtain a copy.  We hope you'll check it out and as ever thanks for your support.

Sixteen titles in one year!!  Kind of hard to wrap our heads around it.  Truly a great year all around with some awesome titles we're all very, very proud of.

Tomorrow, Friday 21st, the Air Chief is heading to the Coyote Ridge grade school here in Fort Collins to two presentations to the 5th grad classes there on How To Create Comics.  It's the kids' last day of school before getting out for the holidays and their teachers, Ms.Campbell and Mrs.Yenny were kind enough to invite me to be a guests and make it a fun event. The Air Chief loves doing these kind of school visits.

And finally here for each and every one of you Loyal Airmen is our annual photo Christmas Card.  Valerie and the Air Chief wish each and everyone one of you the BEST holidays ever.  Please be careful when traveling and we hope Santa leaves tons of wonderful surprises under all your Christmas Trees.  Be good, be happy and we'll see you all back here next week for our final entry of the year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS – Ron – Over & Out!

                   
                                            A SURPRISE HOLIDAY GIFT
Greetings Loyal Airmen and welcome to this week's Flight Log.  We mentioned recently that the Air Chief had come down with a kidney infection a few weeks back and was happily getting better due to the antibiotics the doctor prescribed for us.  Earlier this week a small gift-wrapped box arrived in the mail from Loyal Airmen John Bodnar. John's a good friend who has been a huge supporter of Airship 27 Productions from day one, to buy our books and stopping by our table at the Windy City Paper & Pulp show in past years. An all around great guy.  So we open his surprise gift and find a custom made Airship 27 Christmas Tree Ornament.

                 
                                         THE AIRSHIP 27 ORNAMENT TAKES FLIGHT
And here it is hanging up in our living room Christmas Tree, up front in a place where all can see it.  John, you did an awesome job with this and we will treasure it for ever.  Thank so you very, very much.

           
                       THE AIR CHIEF, KRISTINE KRAUSS & BEN WOLF
On another truly happy note, we wrapped up our first ever How To Write Comics Class at the local comic shop here in Fort Collins, Gryphons Games & Comics, last Sunday afternoon.  Amazing just how fast eight weeks seemed to fly by for us. We snapped the above photo in the main room of the shop before parting.  Kristine and Ben are truly super talented writers and we are sure the little technical things we taught them about writing comics professionally will help them both achieve their dreams of becoming published writers. And even though the course itself is over, we will be staying in touch with our new proteges and have already begun planning a self-published comic title that will feature their works.  So tuned, more on that project as it develops. And thank you Kristine & Ben for your hard work and making this experience so rewarding for the Air Chief.

                            
                                 NEW FROM DYNAMITE COMICS
Finally we wanted to tell all you Loyal Airmen about an exciting new pulp-comic mini-series that has just debut at Dynamite Comics.  For the past several years, Dynamite has become a leader in doing comics based on classic radio and pulp heroes from the 1930s.  From the Lone Ranger to Tarzan, the Green Hornet, the Spider and the Shadow, Dynamite has really put out some excellent titles featuring this great classic heroes and is presenting them to a whole new generation of fans.  Well now comes the pulp cross-over series we've all dreamed of, sort of a pulp version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  Written by talented Chris Roberson with art, on this first issue, by the great Alex Ross, this tale brings together the Shadow, the Green Hornet & Kato, the Spider, the Black Bat, Zorro and Ms.Fury in a stupendous battle against an corrupt organization that has taken control of New York City and holding it and its citizens in a might grip of fear.  Now only these masked vigilantes can save the city by banding together to bring justice to those evil doers who would hide behind the law.  Issue one is great and we can't wait for the rest of the series. We give it major thumbs up, Loyal Airmen.

And there you go for another week at Hangar 27.  Take care, stay safe and remember, through the hubbub of this frantic holiday season, to recognize the greatest gifts you already possess, your loved ones. God bless you all.
Ron – Over & Out!