MOUNT RUSHMORE, SOUTH DAKOTA
Greetings Loyal Airmen, we hope you are all enjoying this last weekend of summer and having a great Labor Day Holiday.  Last month (July) the Air Chief and his family here in Fort Collins, all piled into an SUV and head north east to South Dakota for a four day vacation to see two of this country's greatest sites; one finished and the other still a work in progress.  Above is a shot of famous Mount Rushmore, with Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Seeing this up close was inspiring and is something every American should once in their lifetime. It makes you feel proud of this Grand Old Republic of ours.
                   
               

We were lucky in be able to rent a beautiful cabin located in a massive camp grounds only a few miles from the monument.  Here's the Air Chief and Val relaxing on the front porch.  Vacations, even for us retired folks, are still wonderful get-aways.

And here we are standing in front of Mount Rushmore.  Can you tell we were have a great time.

    
                          Don “Nick” Clifford & the Air Chief
While at Rushmore, we naturally stopped in the see the gift shop in hopes of picking up a few souvenirs of our trip. Lo and behold, it proved to be our lucky day because appearing there that day was Don “Nick” Clifford, one of the original “drillers” of the monument.  According to Nick's autobiography, which the Air Chief quickly purchased and had autographed, Nick worked on the site between the years 1938 to 1940.  He's a truly remarkable man and true American hero.  It was an honor to shake his hand and meet him.

Left to right the Air Chief's vacation crew. Left to right, son Alan, Val, granddaughter Chelsea (who was visiting from Maine and lucky enough to join us on this adventure) the Air Chief, granddaughter Cora, our daughter-in-law Nicole and grandson Alex.  Those smiles were real, Loyal Airmen.

Leaving Rushmore, we headed down the highway to the Crazy Horse monument still in progress.  It is a massive undertaking ten time larger than Rushmore, in fact all of Rushmore would fit into the Crazy Horse's War Bonnet when it is completed.  Here are the Air Chief, Chelsea & Val.

With Crazy Horse in the background, here's Al and his Mom, Valerie. 

In the reception facilities is a smaller version of the completed Crazy Horse sculpture.  The significance of his pointing is part of the script on the back.  Where in supposedly someone asked the Chief where his home was, to which he replied, “There, where my people are buried. That is my home.”  Once completed, the Crazy Horse Monument will be a powerful remembrance of all Native American people who once were the only inhabitants of this grand land of ours.

And there you have our summer vacation trip for 2012.  Believe we took lots more picture than the few I've shared here.  If you'd like to see others, including some of the hundreds of motorcycles we saw go to my Facebook Album marked Rushmore Vacation.  We hope all our Loyal Airmen had a great summer as well.

Finally, over the past year, the Air Chief has been working with a Spanish comic company called Excelsior Comics writing a new five issue mini-series called CITY OF DREAMS.  The series will be run on their comics website, each page available for free.  Once all have been posted, they will use print-on-demand to print actual hard copies of the comics.

The cover to CITY OF DREAMS, book one, by artist publisher, Carlos Henry. You can view the pages, plus several other comics at their site located at (http://excelsiorwebcomics.blogspot.com/) Let us know what you think of it.  And that's it for another week Loyal Airmen.  As ever thanks for stopping.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen.  Well as we get closer to the Labor Day weekend and the end of the summer seasons many schools around the area are once again in session. Our grand kids, Cora & Alex are both back in school, Alex beginning his high school career. Both attend Rocky Mountain High here in Fort Collins, CO. Cora is a junior this year. While back in New England, our oldest grand child, Kristi, has started her junior year at the University of New Hampshire while her sister, Chelsea, is starting her senior year of high school at Noble High in Maine. Some time in the next week as well, the two youngest, Taryn and Logan will be in new classes in there hometown of Bethel, Conn. Naturally we wish them all a terrific school year ahead.

On the writing front, the Air Chief's newest published work is another Green Hornet just out in Moonstone Books' third Green Hornet anthology.  It's called, “DEATH FROM BEYOND,” and the book is now on sale in both soft and hard cover at fine booksellers everyone and on-line. The gorgeous cover for the soft back above was done by artist Doug Klauba.  Hope you'll check it out.

Finally, one of the Air Chief's all time favorite comic book heroes is the Rocketeer as created by the late Dave Stevens.  Twenty-five years ago Disney made a great movie based on the comic and it remains one of our all time favorites as well.  It starred Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Alan Arkin & Timothy Dalton and is pure pulp and serial fun from start to finish with a great James Horner.  Well, this week, there has been a rumor circulating through the internet that Disney is strongly considering doing a new version of this movie.  Obviously we've mixed feelings about this as all too often such movie adaptations fall flat.  At the time of its release, the first ROCKETEER movie was a wonderful exception in that it perfectly captured the fun and magic of the comic series.  If Disney can recruit the proper writers and cast to do justice to Steven's great character, then this fan will be the first in line to buy a ticket.

And there you have for this week, Loyal Airmen.  Hopefully next week we'll be announcing the release of Airship 27 Productions' latest pulp title. Till then, be well.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Comic Loyal Airmen.  Last week, Rob Davis and yours truly were in Columbus, Ohio, attending the third annual Pulp Fest convention.  For those of you unfamiliar with this show, it is the continuation of the classic Pulp Con which ran for thirty-seven years and closed its doors in 2008.  Two years later, in 2010, a group of veteran pulpsters led by Jack Cullers, Ed Hulse and Mike Chomko decided to revamp the old con and evolve it into something brand new and so like the phoenix rising out of the ashes, Pulp Fest was born in 2010 and Airship 27 Productions was there.

This year's show left the smaller Ramada Inn for the larger, more modern facilities of the downtown Hyatt Hotel which is part of the Columbus Convention Center.  A huge complex which features several restaurants and a shopping mall on its main floor.  Pulp Fest 2012 main hucksters' hall was held in the third floor ballroom and was spacious beyond description, although there were some issues with poor lighting that didn't sit all that well with the vendors. There is no escaping these snafus when switching venues.  The panels and such were conducted in the Franklin room located on the second floor.

Rob and the Air Chief checked in early Friday morning and immediately set up our tables.  Yes, you heard me right, tables in the plural.  After six years of running our publishing venture, we've way too many titles, both in pulps and comics, to crowd on one small table and so we spread out a bit.  The center of our display this year was our new Captain Action novel, “Riddle of the Glowing Men,” by Jim Beard.  This is the first time this toy-to-comics hero has ever appeared in a prose novel of his own. 

Of course doing shows year and year out, you soon make lots of fans and the pulp community is truly made of great, friendly souls. Both the Air Chief and Rob kept seeing old friends throughout the day. But the biggest surprise of all was when Howard Hopkin's widow, Dominique Hopkins, showed up.  Howard, a gifted writer, editor and dear friend, passed away suddenly last December at the young age of 49. Dominique's presence was such a tremendous, joyful surprise to our entire community.  And it was obvious it was a truly positive experience for her as well.

The Air Chief's first con duty of the weekend was a 3 p.m. Friday reading.  I chose to read from my award winning Avenger short story, “Vengeance Is Mine,” and was delighted by my small, but attentive and truly supportive audience.  Friday night Rob and the Air Chief headed out to dinner with several pulp amigos in tow.  The real fun of these shows, other than meeting new readers and showcasing our books, is our chance to hang with our colleagues. We look forward to this as much as any other con activity.

Saturday got off to a rollicking start when one of the Captain's Comic Related pals, artist Chris Metzer, showed unexpectedly and spent the entire day with us.  Chris is a great guy and super talented artist who is now hard at work on the cover to my comic title, “Ron Fotier's Tales of the Macabre” #4.  This was his first pulp show and he had a blast.  Of course we were quickly meeting lots of Loyal Airmen and selling lots of books.  At eleven a.m., writer Jim Beard arrived, took his seat with us behind the table and began autographing copies of his Captain Action book.  They were flying off the table like hot-cakes. This is the first such signing we've ever sponsored at a show and it was much fun.

At 1 p.m. the Air Chief once again left Rob in charge of the tables as we headed down to the Franklin room to moderate, for the second year in a row, a panel on New Pulp Fiction.  On the panel were five of the best writers in the field of pulps today; Jim Beard, Rick Lai, William Patrick Maynard, Duane Spurlock and Dr.Art Sippo.  Being asked to moderate this great group of writers was a true honor for the Air Chief and our audience really enjoyed the hour.

Later, at 3:30 p.m. the Air Chief joined writers Win Scott Eckert and publisher Ron Hanna of Wild Cat Books in hosting a short memorial service to both Howard Hopkins and artist David Burton, note both had passed within a month of each other.  The Air Chief has done a whole lot of public speaking in the past, but this was clearly one of the hardest task he's ever undertaken.  And having Howard's lovely wife in the audience was doubly special.

Once the con closed its doors at five, it was once again out to dinner with yet another group of amigos, this time including Jim Beard, Elli & Janet Harriet, Christ Metzer and Steve Bennett and his friend Anne.  A good group of friends. We hit up a burger joint and had a great old time.  Later that night, the Con Committee had their own award show and the winner of this year's Munsey Award (named for a famous 1930s pulp editor) went to Matt Moring, the editor/publisher of Altus Press; an outfit devoted to producing beautiful series reprints of the classic pulps.  This award was well deserved.

When Sunday morning came around, it time to get in those last few sales, say good-bye to all our pulp friends and sadly start packing up once again.  It is truly amazing just how fast three days fly by.  All too soon we were back in Rob's rental heading for the airport to catch our flight back home, Pulp Fest 2012 now a fond, happy memory.  Already, we're back in the office and busy creating more new books.  We can't wait for next year to roll around.

And there you have this year's Pulp Fest Con report, Loyal Airmen.  We were thrilled to see so many of you there and hope more of you will join us next year. Thanks ever,

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, we hope you've been having a great summer and like us are enjoying the 2012 Summer Olympics now taking place in London, England.  Valerie and the Air Chief were holding our breaths like the rest of the country to see the Fab Five win the gold for Girls Team Gymnastic.

Amazing champions, each and every one of them, especially a tip of the hat to the lovely Gabby Douglas at the far left in the photo above who took the gold in Individual All Around Gymnastics.  Her smile lit up the auditorium.
We could go on and on about the courage, skills and sheer guts of all our American Olympians.  They are truly awesome representatives of the USA.  God bless them all.

Finally, there will be no Flight Log entry next weekend, as the Air Chief and his pal, Art Director, Rob Davis, will be in Columbus, Ohio for the third annual Pulp Fest, as the poster above explains.  This is a great show and if you are anywhere near the area on these dates, do stop by and enjoy the con.  Airship 27 Productions will be hosting a signing Sat. morning Aug. 11th with Captain Action author, Jim Beard.  Then in the afternoon, the Air Chief, for the second year in a row, will be moderating the New Pulp Fiction panel with a handful of today's finest pulp writers on the stage sharing the secrets behind pulp fiction.  Looks to be a blast.

Okay, have to get back to packing.  Rest assured, once we get back from Columbus, we'll be right back here at Hangar 27 HQ with a ton of great new pulp titles coming your way.  So stay tuned.

Ron – Over & Out!

          
                                                            MS CHELSEA LECLERC
Greetings Loyal Airmen, there is much joy at Hangar 27 HQ this week as our beautiful seventeen year old granddaughter Chelsea is visiting us here in Colorado. She is the first member of our family from back east to come out and do so and will be with us for the next few weeks.  Valerie and the Airchief couldn't be happier and the same goes for her cousins Alex and Cora who have gone full tilt in making sure Chelsea has a blast while visiting Fort Collins.  We really hope her visit will spur other beloved clan members from Maine and New Hampshire to follow her lead.
 
                                  
                                                              BROTHER BONES ACTION FIGURE
On the pulp front, we are truly excited to announce our latest adventure of Port Noire's Undead Avenger, Brother Bones has just been released via Tommy Hancock's Pro Se Productions and is cover featured in Volume # 12 of that fine magazine.  The art is by their super talented designer, Sean Ali.

This digest book contains two other great pulp stories and retails for only $6 from Amazon.  You can find it at this link (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1478306572/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_Vaweqb0HJHMXS)  We hope you'll give it look and as ever thanks so much for you continued support.

Finally, a passing word. We would like to offer our condolences to all the victims, deceased and wounded, of that horrible movie shooting that occurred in Aurora, CO last week.  Making sense out of something senseless in impossible.  In these times we can only fall back on our faith and pray our loving Creator shine down blessings and comforts to all those so cruelly effected by this tragedy.  And we applaud the brave officers of the Aurora Police Department whose timely response in getting the wounded to nearby hospitals saved countless lives.
God bless them all.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, as you can see by the full cover image above, our newest Airship 27 Productions pulp novel, CAPTAIN ACTION – Riddle of the Glowing Men is now officially on sale at Amazon's Create Space site. The url is (https://www.createspace.com/3938619) In a few more weeks the book will be available at our Airship 27 Hangar website and of course (www.IndyPlanet.com) as well.  And for the first time ever, we are putting out a Kindle edition of this fantastic book. More on that as it all develops. But for now, go pick up a copy of this pulp action packed thriller. Features a cover by Nick Runge with Rob Davis handling ten black and white interior illustrations and the book's design.

               
                                 WRITER JIM BEARD
And in just a few more weeks, Rob Davis and the Air Chief will be loading up the old Airship 27 and winging our way to Columbus, Ohion, for Pulp Fest which runs from Aug. 9th through the 12th.  On Saturday, Aug. 11th, writer Jim Beard, who penned our new Captain Action pulp novel, will be signing copies of this book at our table. We hope to see many Loyal Airmen in attendance. We'll have a limited number of these books and considering the appeal of this classic action figure hero to toy and comic collectors, we fully expect this first edition to quickly become a much sought after collectible. In October Jim will be at the Captain Action booth at the big New York Comic Con again signing copies of the book. So if you've plans to attend either show, be sure to pick up a copy of his terrific book and get it autographed.

              
                              THE GOOD GUYS
                  
Speaking of big cons, the recent San Diego Comic Con, which wrapped last weekend saw hundreds of fans show up in truly imaginative costumes of their favorite comic heroes.  Among them were the two gentlemen above decked out as the Rocketeer and Captain Action.  The poetic coincidence here is that the toy manufacture of the Captain Action figure is in fact about to release a Rocketeer uniform for the figure. Believe me, the Air Chief is planning on getting one of those.

And finally, out deepest thanks to all you Loyal Airmen who send us your prayers and good wishes this past week as the Air Chief had is first colonoscopy.  This is a test the American Medical Association advises all men and women over the age of fifty to have as it is a very good early warning procedure for possible colon cancer, which, if caught early enough is treatable.  Whereas many people through whatever illogical reasons, be they anxiety or modesty, find excuses to put it off.  That people still die of this cancer is truly a tragedy. We report all this because, even though the result of our test was all good, we are honestly ashamed to have stubbornly put it off these past fifteen years. That was completely irresponsible on our part and we are truly sorry. Thus this message, do NOT follow our example. All you Loyal Airmen out there, you have people who love you dearly and want you around for a long-long time.  If not for yourselves, then do this for them. Call your family doctor and get one scheduled now.  That's an order from the Air Chief, you see, we want you around too.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen.  As the Air Chief writes these words, many of our friends and colleagues are in San Diego attending the big, big..BIG COMIC CON.  We wish all our Loyal Airmen at the show a great time and we can't wait to hear all the news about what comic companies are going to surprise us with next.  And speaking of surprises, we at Airship 27 Productions revealed a beauty this past week across the internet.

Ever since the Air Chief and his pal/art director, Rob Davis, began Airship 27 Productions, we focused solely on using public domain characters for our books.  Being a small, two many operation, we hardly had the cash need to acquire rights to most licensed properties out there, especially those that would fit into the mold of pulp action hero. Then late last year, one of our new writers, Jim Beard, came to us with an intriguing offer.  It seemed Jim had been speaking with the owners of Captain Action Enterprises, Inc. LLC, Joe Ahearn and Ed Catto about the idea of writing a Captain Action pulp novel.  Okay, so before going any further with this story, here's a little history about this character.

                 
Captain Action began life back in the mid-1960s as an action toy figure.  The unique thing is once a boy or girl bought a Captain Action figure, they could could out and buy other costumes for him; costumes that would turn him into other heroes such as Batman, Superman, Spiderman, the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet to name only a few. This ability to change one hero, simply buy changing his outfit, was extremely well received and the toy was a big hit. 

In fact Captain Action became so popular, he eventually got his own comic title from DC comics and lots of great artists such as Wally Wood and Gil Kane worked on the short lived series.  Then after the 70s, he slowly drifted away into obscurity as do a lot of one popular toys.  Then in 2004, as mentioned above, Joe Ahearn and Ed Catto acquired the rights and began working diligently to make Captain Action a household name once again. Part of that effort was launching an entire new comic series, this time from Moonstone Comics out of Chicago where he fared rather well.

Then a new toy company began issuing brand new Captain Action figures with all new costumes, this time to include Captain America and Thor.  We're told in the very near future there will be an Iron Man outfit and a Rocketeer outfit. You can sign us up for that latter one. Now that's crossing over into true pulpdom which brings our story full circle. You see, with all this success in the toy and comic fields, the one venue Captain Action had yet to conquer was that of prose fiction and that is exactly what writer Jim Beard was proposing to the owners last December. 

When they turned out to be receptive to the idea and asked to hear more, Jim then directed them to the Air Chief and Airship 27 Productions, truly going out of his way to describe us as one of the leading quality publishers in the New Pulp Movement today.  Joe and Ed looked over our titles and ultimately contacted us via a remarkably friendly conference call which, when it was all over, we had agreed to produce for them the first ever Captain Action pulp novel.  Of course Jim was set to be the writer and he got to work immediately.  Our choice for interior illustrator was easy, none other that Rob, our super talented Art Director and genius book designer. The challenge was to find the best possible cover painter and after putting our heads together, Rob and the Air Chief knew the only person we wanted for this project was super talented artist Nick Runge.  Nick is a personal friend and several years ago painted a Mr. Jigsaw cover for our comic series by that name that people still drool over whenever they see.  So we contacted Nick and much to sheer joy, he signed on readily to paint the cover.

           
                          COMING SOON!
And there's that glorious cover pictured above for Jim Beard's thrilling novel, CAPTAIN ACTION – Riddle of the Glowing Men.  The actual book is in the last stages of production and will debut at this year's Pulp Fest in Columbus, Ohio, 9th to 12th Aug.  Note, Jim will be at the Airship 27 table on Sat. morning, 11th Aug to autograph copies of the book.  Obviously we full expect the appeal of this book to both pulp fans and toy collectors will make it a very highly sought collectible and hope you Loyal Airmen will grab a copy soon as they become available.  Rest assured, the day they go on sale, we'll notify you right here on where to purchase yours.

And that Loyal Airmen, is how an action toy figure became a bonafide pulp hero.  To say the Air Chief isn't excited would be a whopping understatement.  We think this book is a winner and trust you'll agree.  As ever, thanks for your continued loyalty and support.  See you back here in seven days,

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, well here we are, just about a month from our trip to this year's Pulp Fest in Columbus, Ohio. Hope to see lots of you pulp fans there. The con has a new hotel venue now and it looks to be bigger and better then where they've held the show the past two years.  The Air Chief has been asked to moderate another New Pulp panel and we were only too happy to accept this invitation.  Some of the New Pulp writer who will be sitting in are Jim Beard, Rick Lai, Win Scott Eckert and Tommy Hancock. Tommy is a good pal and the owner manager of Pro Se Productions.  Recently two of our newest pieces of pulp fiction have appeared in Pro Se tittles.

We received our copies this afternoon in the mail and they are truly great looking books.

The Pulptress digest book stars a new female pulp hero created by Tommy. This volume features five of her adventure as written by Tommy, Terry Alexander, Erwin K. Roberts, Andrew Judy and the Air Chief. Our story, “Butcher's Festival,” has her teaming up with our Undead Avenger, Brother Bones.  Whereas the second, average size book is a brand new anthology of Rook stories edited by his creator, Barry Reese and David White. Barry invited five of his colleagues to write a Rook tale and he added a sixth. Beside yours truly, the other writers in this great collection include Bobby, Nash, Mike Bullock, Percival Constantine and Tommy Hancock. Both these books are tons of fun for any lover of pulp fiction. You can find them at Amazon, Barnes & Noble on-line etc.  Give them a try. We think you'll like them.
             
Of course we at Airship 27 Productions have been keeping busy and if all goes well, we will be releasing two new titles this month.  The first is SINBAD – The New Voyages and above is picture of the famous sailor and his international crew.  It was drawn by Ralf van der Hoven who did twelve black and white illustrations for the book itself. We were lucky enough to have this one colored by our friend Casey Beamis.  This series will feature stories much in the same vein as the old classic Ray Harryhausen movies.  Having finished reading and editing the stories for this first volume, we can tell all of you this book is a real winner.

Our second book is the Top Secret project Rob Davis and I have been keeping under wraps since the start of the year.  For the first time ever Airship 27 Productions will be publishing a book starring a well known, license property.  We'll be announcing all the details in another week and not only we'll we have copies of this book at Pulp Fest, where it will make its debut, but the author will be there to sign copies as well.  We will also be raffling off two posters of the cover painting. A true work of beauty.  Anyone buying a copy of the book will have their name put in for a chance to win one of these two posters.  Looks to be a lot of fun.

And that's what we've been up to these past few weeks.  Lots of cool stuff as ever.  Thanks for stopping by and we hope you're all enjoying summer.  Till next week….
Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen, while we were away at the super Denver Comic Con, our 9th Airship 27 Productions pulp title of the year was released and is selling like hotcakes.

JUNLE TALES  Vol One features three new adventures starring the classic Ki-Gor Jungle Lord as written by Aaron Smith, Duane Spurlock and Peter Miller. It is graced by an amazing cover by artist Bryan Fowler and also has twelve black and white interior illustrations by Kelly Everaert.  As you can see, we are fairly excited about this book and hope you'll check it out. As ever, you can find it Amazon or get it at our Airship 27 Hangar as a $3 PDF download file by clicking on to the dirigible logo to the upper left of this column.  Nine books so far this year.  Believe me, Loyal Airmen, we're on a roll.

Last week we also promised you we'd be sharing lots more pictures taken at the Denver Comic Con and here we go. Above is Valerie, son Alan, TV actor Bruce Boxleitner and Alan's wife Nicole. Boxleitner has been a favorite of our ours ever since he played the lead role on Babylon 5.  We're happy to report he's one hell of a great human being was only too happy to talk with all his fans.

The highlight of Saturday night at the show was the Costume Contest. Above was a fellow in a really cool Captain American that we really liked a great deal.  The winner was a savage barbarian in a homemade outfit who called himself, The Scavenger and looked like a Frank Frazetta painting come to life. Alas, no photos of him.  Sorry.

             
                     
As most Loyal Airmen know, the Air Chief is best known for writing the Green Hornet comic series for now comics in the early 90s.  When we saw this figure draped out like that character, we had to stop and check it out. The vendor who was selling authentic TV Green Hornet mask and gas-gun replicas suggested we try on one on and Val snapped the accompanying photo. This was a hoot.

No never knows what one is going to find at a comic con and lo and behold, this Police British Police Box just popped up in a corner.  We thought we'd seen it before somewhere and before it up and vanished again, son Alan and his wife Nicole made sure to get a shot in front of it.  All our Dr.Who fans out there, this was just too wild you can bet there is a photo of the Air Chief and the Tardis in our private albums as well.

And finally this little R2 D2 unit showed up following the Air Chief around one day.  Have to admit, he was a great conversationalist.

And there you go for another week, Loyal Airmen.  Thanks ever for stopping by.  And please, we are sure all of you by now are well aware of the horrible and devastating forest fires that have been burning here in Colorado for over three weeks now and have destroyed hundreds of private homes both in the north and south. Please pray that we do eventually get cooler weather and much needed rain, and remember all those brave fire fighters who have been on the front lines since they one.  They are real heroes to all of us here.  God bless each and everyone one of them.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen, well here we are, having survived the amazing, super-duper, wonderful premier of the ever mega Denver Comic Con held at the Denver Convention Center last week. Although we don't have any official tallies, estimates have something like twenty-two thousand people attended this amazing three day show, the first of its kind in the Mile High City.  Our utmost thanks and praise to all the people who we've been told have been working for over three years to make this show a reality.

      
                            Valerie & the Air Chief at Table #41
Of course we were thrilled to be invited as one of the dozens of local Coloradan creators to be guests for this debut con.  And we extend a heartfelt thanks to all the great people who came by to say hi and by the end of the three days had bought nearly 80% of our stock of comics.  Truly awesome.  Mr.Jigsaw was a big, big hit and we are sure now has some truly dedicated new fans. Between us and our Fort Collins crew, we took lots and lots of photos and in the coming weeks will be sharing them with all you Loyal Airmen.

     
                            The Air Chief & Jasika Nicole of FRINGE
If you are a regular visitor to this Flight Log every week, then you already know our favorite television series these days is J.J.Abram's FRINGE on Fox, which wrapped up its fourth season a few months ago.  One of the shining lights of that cast is the lovely Jasika Nicole who plays F.B.I. agent, Astrid.  When we first discovered she was going to be one of the “big” Hollywood guest of the convention we were thrilled but never in our wildest imaginations did we think we'd actually get to meet her.  Sure enough, early Sat. morning as the staff was beginning to set up the events before opening the doors to the public, in walks Ms.Nicole being ushered to her table by one of the con volunteers.  Seeing there was no one around yet, Valerie nudged the Air Chief to go up and say hello. Fighting off our sudden attack of shyness, we approached the table and introduced ourselves and confessed to being a huge fan of both the show and her role in it.  If you've at all ever seen FRINGE, then you will already know the character she portrays is pretty much the heart of the team that investigates weird, paranormal activities.  Lo and behold, much to the Air Chief delights, Ms.Nicole is just as warm and friendly as the character she portrays and happily agreed to post with us for the photo above. In leaving, we once again thanked her sincerely for coming to Denver and making Colorado's first big show something special with her presence. This was truly the highlight of my weekend, Loyal Airmen, and one we will never forget.

     
                    Jeff Herndon, the Air Chief, Todd Jones & Felipe Echevarria
Another of the real joys of being part of this con was being able to share it with many of our Fort Collins colleagues to include the three you see pictured above with the Air Chief; artist Jeff Herndon (who has already done several beautiful covers for Airship27 Productions) writer Todd Jones, our protege and pro artist Felipe Echevarria (who is also working on a cover for Airship 27).  Both Felipe and Todd were actually across the aisle from our table. Missing in this shot is pal, Mike Baron, who was seated to our right with his wife Ann all weekend.  Sharing this weekend with these amigos was simply icing on the cake.  And we don't want to forget artist Nick Runge, another Fort Collins native who joined us.  As you can see, there was LOTS of comic talent at this show.

         
                        Cora & the Wonky Robot
Of course one of the coolest activities seen at big cons such as this one is the many, many fans who come to these shows decked in out elaborate costumes of their favorite comic, fantasy or movie heroes.  They are now called COSPLAYERS, a merging of the words COSTUME – PLAYER.  We saw dozens of them all weekend long and Valerie snapped lots of great photos of many of them.  We thought we'd display one of our favorites, the wonky robot here posting with our beautiful granddaughter, Cora.  Our son Alan, his wife Nicole and our grandkids, Cora and her brother, Alex, joined us both Sat. night and all day Sunday.  It was the first time Cora, Alex and their mother had ever attended a big comic con.  They had a blast.

And finally, while we were all in Denver having such a great time at the con, our latest Brother Bones short story entitled “Butcher's Festival,” was released as part of the new Pulptress digest anthology from Pro Se Productions. This is the first new Brother Bones story in over five years and we were thrilled to have it be a part of this very cool little book. You can find it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and all major book sellers.  We hope you'll check it out. The idea behind the book is the Pulptress, the First Lady of New Pulp, teams up with a different pulp character in each of the five stories features in this anthology.  The book is a winner and we hope you'll pick up a copy soon.

And there you go, Loyal Airmen.  The Air Chief has attended, and survived, our first ever giant Colorado comic con.  Again our hats off to the promoters and dreamers who made this all happen and hopefully we'll all be back next year to do it again.

Ron – Over & Out!