Greetings Loyal Airmen.  Your Old Air Chief is very excited today because we've got some really wonderful news to lay on all of you. There's an old literary adage that claims “you can never go home again.”  It's off course a metaphor meaning as you mature in life, you supposedly cannot reclaim the joys and innocence of one's youth.  To which we here at Hangar 27 say, Bull Feathers!!!  Not only do we go back quite often, if only in our vivid imaginations, but we often have the fun of taking you Loyal Airmen along for the ride.  This week is such a case.

                       
Back in 1982, artist Gary Kato and the Air Chief broke into the ranks of professional comic-dom with a 12 pg. science fiction story for Charlton Comic's Bullseye title.  The good people at Charlton liked our efforts so much they asked us to give them something else.  That something else was the 11 pg. origin story of Mr.Jigsaw, Man of a Thousand Parts; a funny superhero story that both us had so much fun doing.  Charlton appreciated that effort and made it the cover feature for their book, Scary Takes # 38, dated May 1983.   Which both of us truly consider the launching our our respective careers.  Only a handful of people ever saw that particular comic, but among those who did were comics pro/writer/columnist Tony Isabella and the late comics historian, Don Thompson.  Both of them became avid Jiggy (as we came to call him for short) fans and helped spread the word about him.

                  
All of which lead to this one-shot Mr.Jigsaw comic book from Ocean Comics out of Rhode Island, owned and operated by our old pal, Bob Palin.  This garnered a lot of great reviews and we even did a few nice interviews in a lot of New England newspaper.  At point we even had a TV agent option the character for a possible Saturday morning cartoon show.  Keep in mind this was the age of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and cartoons were very, very big.  Alas the options expired and nothing along those lines ever materialized.  If you haven't guessed it by the covers yet, let me provide a little more info on the actual character.  Charlie Grant, alias Mr.Jigsaw, was a young man with the ability, since birth, to dismember himself and then control mentally the various parts of his body while they were separated.  Creepy, huh?  Still, Gary and I managed to convey some good-natured wackiness and most of our readers found Charlie loveable.

               
Jiggy disappeared for a long-long time after that Ocean Comics gig.  He would resurface in two more events in the intervening years.  Alpha Productions out of Maine, a small independent comics company did a series of E-MAN comics starring the electricity hero created by my good friend Joe Staton and writer Nick Cuti.  The editor of the book, Chris Mills, wanted to fill it with short back up stories and remembered Mr.Jigsaw.  So Gary and I did three short pieces that appeared in the back of those hard to find E-Man comics.  A few years later the same editor found himself working for an internet website called Adventure Strips, which every day of the week featured two new pages of comics.  We were invited to participate and in a six month period, the webstrip adventures of Jiggy featured three stories, two that were completed; “The Lobster That Ate Portland” and “How It All Began,” and had started a third, “The Icemen Cometh” when the project folded, and it was never completed.   Until now that is.

          
And that's our happy news, Loyal Airmen.  In just a few weeks, working with my pal Rob Davis, Gary and I are about to release a new series of Mr.Jigsaw comics to be published via Rob's Redbud Studio.  The first three issues will reprint ALL the previous Jiggy adventures ever done. Yup, every single one of them, to include the entire Icemen Cometh story.  Oh, and that's the cover # 1 above.  We don't want to reveal the fully colored version yet, we're saving that for the debut.  Again, in  just a few short weeks.  Once we've finished getting these three issues in print, then we are going to start producing brand new Mr.Jigsaw tales with issue # 4, and our plan is to continue doing them until…well, until, we can't anymore.  Hopefully that will be a long, long time.

In my entire career as a comics writer, no other single character has brought us so much good old fashion fun.  It seems appropriate in a time when things are really bleak all around us, with many of our Loyal Airmen unemployed and facing difficult challenges, that we try to maybe lighten the mood of things a wee bit with a few good-natured laughs.  Its our hope Jiggy will provide those for all of you.  Stay tuned. We really think you are going to love this guy!

Finally, several Loyal Airmen wrote this past week mentioning the very cool Airship 27 Prod. baseball shirt we are wearing in photos from last week's Log Entry and they wanted to know if those were for sale.  But of course, and you can find it and lots of other very cool Airship 27 merchandise by going to our Air Fare page and clicking on to the dirigible logo. That will bring you to our Cafe Press store were we have tons of great apparel and stationary stuff all bearing our cool logos and pulp covers.  Please stop over and check it out. And as always, thanks so much for you support.

Ron – Over & Out!

Greeting Loyal Airmen and a hearty Happy 2009 to all of you.  I flew home on 31 Dec. (that's my grandson Logan's birthday..Happy Birthday, Logan!) and was happy to be back in the Granite State after a truly memorable two weeks in Ft.Collins, Colorado.  This, thanks to my son, Alan, and his family, was a fun vacation for ye old Air Chief and one very much centered around school, artists and comic shops. 

                      The Air Chief, grandson Alex Horne & teacher Mrs.Emily Yenny

When I first started my comix writing career, our five children were little tykes and when their respective teachers heard what I did, I was invited to come to their classes and talk about comic books.  I did quite a few of these presentations for our sons and daughters and lo and behold now I'm doing them for our grandkids.  Before flying out to Colorado, Valerie contacted Mrs.Emily Yenny, our grandson Alex' fifth grade teacher and together they set up a date for me to visit their class and give that hour long presentation.  I'm so happy to report everything went like clockwork and all of us, me, Alex, his school chums and Mrs.Yenny, had a really fun times.  These kids are so bright; their insightful questions were awesome.  It certainly was a day neither Alex or I will ever forget.

               
                                    
                        GRAND SLAM owner & manager Kevin Keen and the Air Chief

One of the things we love to do when traveling is look for Comic Shops, those magical places where you can find all kinds of amzing books and toys.  Well, two days into our visit, Alan decided to take us for a ride around the neighboring town of Loveland, Co. which is where I spotted a sign reading – Grand Slam Sports Cards & Comics.   No sooner had I pointed it out then Alan made a U-turn and we pulled up in the parking lot and headed inside.  Where we met store owner and manager, Kevin Keen and his brother Jason, two of the nicest folks ye old Air Chief has ever had the pleasure of meeting.  Grand Slam is a great comic shop and if you are ever in the Ft.Collins/Loveland area, do yourselves a major favor and check it out.  Their addres is –
                                          GRAND SLAM
                                          Sports Card & Comics
                                          1730 W. Eisnenhower Blvd.
                                           Loveland, CO. 80537     Tel – 667 8713
Should you stop by, tell them Ron Fortier said “Hi!”   During our first visit to the shop, while I was in a fun discussion with Kevin about the merits of the Dark Knight movie, unbeknown to me, Valerie had spotted an action figure she knew I would love and went over to Jason (at the other end of the shop) and purchased it for me.  Two days later, on Christmas morning, I opened a box in which was a Captain America action figure based on a new costume design by comics legend, Alex Ross.  Val then confessed as to how she and Alan had gotten this cool new toy while I was busy with Kevin.  Got to watch those two, they are sneaky. Ha…ha.

Speaking of Alex Ross, might as well segue into the next part of this amazing trip. The first comic work Alex ever did was a five issue mini-series called TERMINATOR – THE BURNING EARTH for the late Now Comics.  And, as you Loyal Airmen are well aware, that series was written by ye old Air Chief himself.  Try finding a copy of that collection.  It's almost impossible.  Anyway, Alan had informed me that one of his business associates had a son who was now in the comics game as a cover artist and one of his first projects was doing the new TERMINATOR – SALVATION covers for IDW comics.  This series soon to be released is an adaptation of the new film to star Christian Bale.  The coincidence was too cool and so Alan set it up for me to meet this young man while out there.  His name is Nick Runge and of course he's a huge Alex Ross fan.  We hit it off immediately and spent several hours, on two different occasions, discussing comics.

                               Nick Runge & the Air Chief

Nick is one of the most talented artist in comics today and his work is just stunning.  He's also one of the most personable young men I've ever had the good fortune to meet.  This fellow is going to do great things in our industry and you heard it here first.

Above is a preview of Nick's work.  Believe me, Loyal Airmen, this is one comic series I am not going to miss, and I urge you to order your copies today!!!  We can't help but be amused at how our lives have spun around certain properties; that is being involved with this science-fiction icon at the start of our career and now meeting the new vanguard in Nick.  Any wonder why we love comics so much?

So there you have it, our wonderful holiday comic jaunt to Colorado.  Come back next week when I reveal what old comic book character we are going to be bringing back in 2009 for your comic book enjoyment.  We think you Loyal Airmen are going to be pleasantly surprised.

Till then, Ron – Over & Out.

Greeting Loyal Airmen, on this day after Christmas 2008.  We certainly hope and pray all of you had a truly fun filled day spent with the people you love the most.  To all our Loyal Airmen in uniform protecting our country overseas, please know that on Christmas eve, while attending a beautiful church here in Ft.Collins, Colorado, Valerie and the Air Chief offered our heartfelt prayers for your continued safety and swift return home.  We never ever forget any of you.

Well Santa was certainly generous to our grand kids, despite these hard economics times.  Logan back in Conn. now has a Lightning McQueen (from the Disney movie CARS) scooter and red new winter boots while his older sister Taryn has a brand new, big-girl bike.  Chelsea in Maine has a digital camera and can now text on her cell phone.  Talk about children of the digital age.  Whereas, Kristi, our oldest of this new generation will soon have a stereo set up in that Toyota pick-up truck of hers.  Remind me to tell you that story some day.  Out here in sunny Colorado, Cora found herself the new owner of an electronic keyboard; she has a real talent for music and entertained us all later with a few tunes. Brother Alex now has X-Box 360 which came with the popular action game HALO….and the biggest treat of all, Guitar Hero.   He, Cora and our their dad, Alan, all took turns on it during the course of the day, really providing us with lots of good-natured laughs.  All in all it was another wonderful family Christmas to be added to our expanding memory files.

And less you think ye old Air Chief was left out of the toy grab-bag, rest assured he was not.  We now own a truly awesome Lone Ranger & Tonto coffee mug and a marvelous Captain America action figure!  Among other very cool things, like the shirt pictured below.

This was a gift from Val to help the Air Chief look super cool at the next Windy City Paper & Pulp Con being held in May 09.  You too can find all kinds of very cool Airship 27 clothing and swag at our on-line Cafe Press shop.  To find it, merely click on to the dirigible logo to the left of this column.  That will bring you to our on-line book store where all our Airship 27 Prod. are always available.  Scroll to the bottom of that page and you'll find the link to our Airship 27 store.  Remember our standing offer.  Anyone coming to a show wearing any of our cool shirts, hats, whatever, will be entitled to purchasing any one item from our table of goodies for fifty percent off.  Our way of saying thanks for your support.

And if the logo our outfit on my baseball shirt wasn't big enough for you, check this absolutely gorgeous stand up banner Rob (the smiling dude) Davis had made up.  We love it!  It will also be making its debut in Chicago at Windy City.  This will be our third trip to this super pulp show and we really hope to see lots of you Loyal Airmen there.  As you can see, what with shirts and banners, we are really excited about 2009 and the new pulp and comics we've got coming your way.  Stay tuned.

Finally, befoe signing out, we want to steer all of you to a great book.  In the course of this past year we have read many, many books for our Pulp Fiction Review blog.  In looking back on all those titles, the one that clearly was our favorite was the above pictured, FLYGIRL by Sherri L.Smith.  It's a World War II story about a group of truly brave American women that totally mesmerized me.  I hope you'll check it out.

And that wraps up our Log Entries for 2008.  Thanks for sticking with us and making it, with your support, another positive year.  We sincerely wish all our Loyal Airmen and their loved ones a truly Happy New Year.
See you back at the Hangar 27 in 09.
Ron – Over & Out!

Greetings Loyal Airmen.  Well here we are in the Rocky Mountain State of Colorado.  Valerie and I woke up to snowfall in New Hampshire yesterday morning and knew we had an extra long day ahead of us.  Driving fifty miles through sleet and freezing rain, we arrived at the Manchester airport safe and sound and managed to fly out of there only a half hour later than planned.  Thing was, the prevailing headwinds across the country were strong and by the time we landed at Midway in Chicago, we were later still.  Finally our plane to Denver arrived and we got into the Mile High City about a hour later than scheduled.  Our son Alan, and his wife were on hand to pick us up and here we are in Ft.Collins, were we will spending the holidays.  

The above is a little something Rob Davis whipped up so that we at Airship 27 Prod. could wish you our best at this holiday season and again thank all you Loyal Airmen for tremendous support you've given our humble efforts throughout the year.  When I say we couldn't do it without you, that's the God's honest truth.

Tomorrow I'm going to be giving an hour presentation on comic books for my grandson Alex's fifth grade class.  He says not only are his school pals excited about my visit but so is his teacher.  Ha.  I've done such school presentations starting way back when his father was a little tyke and I still get a kick out of doing them.  Should be much fun.

                              
                                             Valerie & Ye Old Airchief

Finally, Valerie and I want to wish all your Loyal Airmen, all the old and new friends we have made through this website over the years, a truly wonderful, love filled holiday.  Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and whatever else you may celebrate at this truly festive time of the year.  We wish all of you a joyous time and nothing but the best for the New Year ahead.  This last one has been rough on many of you and please know we keep you always in our prayers.  Never forgotten.

God bless all you Loyal Airmen and your loved ones.
Ron – Over & Out

                               
                                                     12:30 PM  FRIDAY 12-12-08

Greeting Loyal Airmen.  As I write this Log Entry, the scene outside is one of a glazed countryside covered with a thin layer of ice.  Most of New England was hit by a severe ice storm during the night and this morning most businesses and schools are shut down as road crews continue to lay down salt and sand over all byways.  Most of the bare trees are bent like ancient stick people, the weight of the ice causing many to break and lots of them have come down over power-lines with obvious, disastrous results.  Fortunately, our area still has power.  With fingers crossed and lots of prayers, it will remain unaffected.  What most non-New Englanders do not realize is how crippling ice is. We are prepared to handle mountains of snow, but a thin sheet of ice simply cannot be managed save for the weather temperatures rising to a melting degree.  So we stay huddled in our homes and wait.

Which is not a bad thing in that your old Air Chief has a few things to cover this week.  One of them being the fantastic model railroad display envisioned and realized by our son, Scott.  See picture above.   Scott, who resides in Bethel, Conn.,  built this layout to be auctioned off for the SCOTTY Fund, at its 7th  Winter's Eve Gala Dinner Dance & Tree Auction Last Friday.   The SCOTTY Fund, Inc.  was established in 1996 in  memory of Scott Anderson.   Scotty was a three year old who lost his life to cancer.  Wanting to do something special for this cause, Scott had the idea to built, from scratch, an entire railroad diorama.  And so for many, many nights, after coming home from work, he would go out to his garage and create this truly beautiful layout.   By the time he was finished, the cost in miniature buildings, landscape, tracks, trains etc. had climbed into the hundreds of dollars, never mind the labor hours involved. When all was said and done, the above was finished and donated.   He has not gotten back to me yet on how well the auction went or at what dollar amount it sold for.  I'm hoping it was in the thousands, as it should have been.  Scott did a magnificent job here and for a truly great cause.  We in the family are all so proud of him and wanted to share his marvelous efforts with all you Loyal Airmen.  Take bow, Number One Son.

                    
                               Forrest J. Ackerman (1916-2008)

When I was about ten years old, I discovered a newstand magazine all about old horror and science fiction movies called FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND.  It changed my life forever.  It was the product of  one man, writer/editor Forrest J. Ackerman.  Every single month it was jammed packed with little known facts about all these classic old films.  Over the years, as I read and collected this super terrific periodical, I realized I was actually getting an education in the culture of the fantastic.  Each issue fired my imagination and the things I learned in FMOF inspired me to want to do cool things, like write comic book and pulps.  And believe me, Loyal Airmen, I wasn't the only one growing up in the late 50s and early 60s who was being shaped by Uncle “Forry.”  George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, John Landis and countless other dreamers were all devoted followers of this amazing magazine.  To say he shaped an entire generations of dreamers would not be a lie.

Beside producing this great magazine, Ackerman also collected film memorabilia from all this great old movies until his California home was so packed with these cinema treasures, it became a real museum and he called it the Ackermansion and would open its doors every Saturday morning to fans.  Thousands walked through its halls and beheld one-of-kind artifacts from classic Hollywood epics.  Uncle Forry was truly one of a kind himself and last week, at the age of 92 years young, he slipped away into that land of eternal dreams.   Some four years ago, while attending a Horror Convention in Baltimore, I finally got to shake his hand and thanking him personally for inspiring me and being such a huge part of my growing up.  Rest in Peace, Uncle Forry.  And one more time, from one of your most devoted readers, THANK YOU.

And speaking of dreams, Uncle Forry would have loved books like our latest release, SECRET AGENT X – Volume III.   A few weeks ago I did up an entire Log Entry on how we devised this awesome cover by Rob Davis and Shane Evans.  Well it is now officially available for sale and I hope all you'll Loyal Airmen will check it out.  It is the third in our on-going series of all new adventures of pulpdom's greatest super-spy.  This collection features stories by John Bear Ross, Frank Schildiner, H.Jarrod Courtemance and Andrew Salmon, every one of them an action packed pulp thriller.  This title should be posted at our on-line store (see dirigible logo to left of this column) by the end of the day.  This book is the last 2008 release from Airship 27 Productions.  We think we're going out with a winner.  It has been an incredible year for Airship 27 Prod. and we now have ten titles in our ever growing catalog.  But believe me, Loyal Airmen, the best is yet to come.  We've got some great new titles planned for 2009, so stick around.  We couldn't do it without your continued support.

Which pretty much wraps up this week's Log Entry.  Valerie and I are packing as we will be flying out to Colorado at the start of next week to spend the holidays with our son, Alan, and his family.  Usually that would mean shutting down Hangar 27, but not so this year.  I'm bringing along our wi-fi laptop with us and will continue to dispatch new entries from the Rocky Mountain state.  So come back next week, if you can spare a few minutes from all your hectic holiday errands.

Till then, stay sane, remember the true origins of this holiday and do something nice to someone.  This is a time of giving, and I don't mean things.

Ron – Over & Out.

Greeting loyal airmen.  The above picture is highly representative of what my spirit went through this past week and is only now recovering.  After having posted one of our most popular Log Entries last week (and thanks to all of you to took the time to write and tell us how much you liked it), I was flying pretty high.  Then I received a letter from one of our Airship 27 Prod. writers, Andrew Salmon, telling me there was a major printing mistake in our recently released Captain Hazzard # 4 – The Cavemen of New York.  Somehow, through some totally weird voodoo glitch in our computer programs, the text for page 182 was swapped around for the text on page 185 and vice versa!!! And none of us caught it!  Your old Air Chief takes full blame here for not sitting down and re-reading the entire book when it was printed.  After having spent months with the script, and then seen multiple pdf versions as Rob put it together, I was lazy and although I did look through the book, I did not actual read it.  And so was done in!  Crash and burn big time.

Andrew was set to write a review for Amazon and asked me how he should proceed.  As sick as this entire affair made me, I realized, in complete deference to all you loyal airmen (& and our readers) we simply could not ignore this.  That's like ignoring an elephant standing in the middle of one's parlor.  Nope, we would not do that ever.  We value all of you and your support too much.  So I asked Andrew to write his review as planned and add an epilogue explaining the printing error.  In the meantime, Andew has also volunteered to go through the entire book one more time and he and Rob are going to assembe an entire new pdf for our publisher, who stands ready to delete the corrupt old files for these new ones.  In the meantime I wish to make this up for all of you who have already bought this book.  Simply write to me and tell me the last word in the novel to confirm you do own the book.  I will in turn digitally send you (free of charge) a copy of the clean pdf files so that you can at least have a clean version in digital format.

By the start of next week, those bad files will be history and people buying the book will get clean copies. All of us involved with Airship 27 Prod. and Cornerstone Book Publishers are truly sorry for this snafu.  It is never our intention to produce anything but the highest quality books.  Granted, this is an imperfect world and you will never ever see a book free of a single typo or mispelling etc.  It's impossible.  But that does not excuse them either.  After several days of discussing this situation, all of us decided something concrete had to be done to prevent any reoccurences.  To that end we recruited a communication professional (and long time loyal airmen) John Bruening to assume the role of our Official Proof Reader.  John is a great guy and dedicated typo hunter/destroyer. When we offered him the job, he responded immediately, rolling up his sleeves ready to charge out of the gate at once to tackle his new assignment.  All of us feel lots more confident with John added to the team.  In a way, this negavtive event was the inspiration for us to work harder and make our process even better.

Finally, should any of you ever pick up an Airship 27 Prod. title and find a similar error, never hesitate to inform of us such.  Again, none of us here claim perfection and your aid and support are always valued. 

                              Kristi  – Valerie – Chelsea –  Alex – Cora
On a much happier note, while out in Colorado for Thanksgiving, Valerie took lots and lots of pictures.  One of the joys of the trip was in bringing our two Maine based grand kids, Kristi & Chelsea (along with their mom, our daughter Michelles) so that they could at long last meet their Colorado cousins, Alex and Cora.  The wonderful picture above was taken just prior to all of them sitting down to a super Thanksgiving meal.  Valerie's smile still hasn't left her face.  It was a super trip and the cousins totally enjoyed each others company.  The greatest gift God gives all of us is family.

Meanwhile, with Turkey Day behind us, life at Hangar 27 is one frantic beehive of activity.  Val and I only have a few weeks before we fly back to Colorado for Christmas.  And a hundred and one things to do before then.  Its going to drive us crazy, but hey, it's a fun crazy.  Stay tuned…and sane.

Ron – Over & Out

Greetings, Loyal Airmen, we trust you all had a terrific Thanksgiving yesterday and are all properly satiated with good loving company and delicious food.  So sit back and enjoy this behind the scenes step by step making of our latest pulp cover for the soon-to-be released SECRET AGENT X – VOL III.

                                 
Of the four new stories we accepted for this new volume, one was called THE MASK OF MEDUSA and was written by Frank Schildiner.   Like all our entries, it's a rip-roaring, action thriller.  The thing with this particular tale is that its plot (& title) offered up an immediate visual image to your old Air Chief.   What if we were to place our hero in front of a giant female head wearing the title head-piece?   As I am always scouring the internet for old pulp covers and when found, keep them in a specific file aptly titled ..PULP ILLOS.   Amongst my collection was the above image with the central figure in exactly the action pose I wanted.  With that found, I had to then find the other two elements we would need.

I needed to find a visually striking mask.  I proceeded to surf the internet again, this time going to Mardi Gras sites as that is where you will find the most beautiful and original such visages.  Happily I found the above image, the center mask being the one that completely won me over.  Now on to step three.

                       
Medusa, as most of you will recall, was the creature from mythology who had living snakes instead of hair and when men looked upon her, they turned to stone.  Finding this classical picture on-line tool me all of five minutes.  So, I had all three parts of my imagine Secret Agent X cover.  Our hero, the woman wearing the mask, and a decent picture of Medusa.   I then digitally sent all three of the above to my partner, and Airship 27 Prod. super duper art director, Rob Davis.  I explained to Rob my idea for the completed composition and left everything in his more than capable hands.  Rob went to work immediately and in two days….

  …sent me this collage he put together using his Photo-Shop PC program.  And here it was, the exact composition I'd envisioned from the start, complete with our familiar X logo.  I let Rob know he'd hit the bullseye and this was exactly the image we needed him to capture in pencil.

When I saw this finished pencil drawing, I nearly cried, it was so damn beautiful.  Rob completely took these various borrowed elements and turned them into a truly powerful, and original pulp cover drawing.  You have to realize at this stage of the development, I was really getting excited.   This was clearly going to evolve into one of our best covers ever.   So now that we had Rob's drawing, it was time to digitally send it off to Shave Evans in New Zealand to work his color magic over it.

Shane is a true craftsman at digital painting, as is quite evident by his embellishment of Rob's pencils.  I'm just sorry tech limitations don't allow me to show this off larger so that you can fully appreciate the nuances of Shane's color work.   It is truly a thing of beauty, and totally captures the essence of Frank's Secret Agent X adventure.   So now all that remained was for Rob to add the final touch, the title logos and writer's names etc.

VOILA!!!  The official cover to SECRET AGENT X – Vol III.   Note how Rob continued to play with the finished art by having several of the snakes slide over the logo bar giving them a 3D feel.  Simply dynamic work on his part from start to finish.   In the end, this cover is ten times what I had dreamed up at the start, thanks to Rob and Shane.  I cannot thank them enough.   And you, my Loyal Airmen, will soon be the beneficiaries of all this hard work, as hopefully we'll be announcing the release of this book in just another few weeks.  Stay tuned.

And there you have it.  I hope you've all enjoyed this little how-to log.  Of course not all our Airship 27 Prod. covers are put together this way, but often this is the route many of them will take to fruition.  As always, I hope you'll stop by our on-line store, if you've not done so before (see dirigible button to upper left of this column) and check out all our titles for sale.  If you've got readers in your family, books make wonderful Christmas gifts.  And on that note, I'll sign off for this week.

Thanks as ever for stopping by. 
Ron – Over & Out

Greeting loyal airmen.  Here we are less than a week from Thanksgiving and I find myself thinking one of the wonderful things that I will be giving thanks for next week, on that holiday, will be ALL OF YOU!!  Last Sunday I was a guest at Ralph DiBernardo's amazing Portsmouth Comic Convention.  It was by far the most fun I've ever had at a small, one day show.  And the reason for that fun was all the tremendous super people I met during the course of those six hours; many of which were loyal airmen who drove up from far off locales.  From the second they opened the doors, my table was never quiet, meaning I was constantly bombarded by old friends, new friends and just plain Airship 27 Prod. fans.  Just amazing.

First thanks have to go to Ralph for hosting such a super show.  Ralph and I go back well over twenty five years together.  When we first hooked up, he's was just a scrawny teenager who loved comics and I was a struggling writer starting to break into the field.  Ralph was the first real fan, other than Valerie, who not only supported my efforts but made sure I always had a place in his burgeoning comic enterprises, whether it was doing store signings at various shops he managed over the years or being a guests at all the fun shows he's put on in this area.  Ralph is truly Mr.Comics in our neck of the woods and I'm truly honored to be his friend.  (And jealous as hell that twenty-five years later, he's still as skinny as ever!  How does he do it?)

Okay, now I'm going to rattle off lots of names here, only because I want to thank those special loyal airmen who came and said hi to the Air Chief and made his day special.  Steve Haggar takes first place in that he drove all the way up here from Penn., telling me he was up at 3 AM to be in New Hampshire for the show's opening at 10 A.M.  Amazing!  Steve came down with several copies of our pulps for me to sign and then proceeded to surprise me by revealing, under his shirt, that he was wearing a Captain Hazzard tee-shirt form our on-line shop!!  Hot dog!  He thus became the first ever Loyal Airmen to so!  What a trooper, and truly all around nice guy. Sure hope we meet again soon, Steve.  Then came Henry Lopez who hails from Miami, but is now living in nearby Concord where he's attending Law School.  Henry runs a gaming company and was a pure joy to talk to. We share a passion for pulps.  Mike Lynch, a local cartoonist stopped by to say hi, as did my old amigo, Randy Buccini.  Larry Young, fellow writer from across the bridge in Maine, was my con neighbor as he had the table next to mine and was promoting his new comic creation, ANGELICA -DEMON HUNTRESS. (Go to IndyPlantet on the web and pick up a copy.  It's good stuff.)  Jarrod Courtemanche, one of my newest pulp writers who has a story in our soon to be released SECRET AGENT X – Vol III, came up with his son Marcus and had a great time.  Jarrod's X story is a winner and I've been pestering him to do more, he's a super talented dude who, in his spare time (ha) also makes short independent films.  Now that's an all around talented guy.  Another Jared who made a visit to our table was Jared Cantin, another writer with whom we hope to be working shortly.   Pulps are all new to Jared, but he's learning fast. And I can't forget Andy Brown.  Last week I did that store signing at the Barnes & Noble in Manchester.  Well a young woman showed up to represent her husband, who couldn't get away from his job that day.  That woman was Samantha Brown and Andy is her writer husband.  What truly great people, both of them.  Andy made it a point to come to meet me Sunday and now he's a bonafide Airship 27 writer.  Yahoo.  Like I said, this list could go on and on and I worry I'll end up posting it and forget someone.  So up front, my apologies if I do so.  Everyone who stops by here every week to read these log entries IS a loyal airmen, and you are all incredibly wonderful people.

Now a question for you.  Who on earth would create a fantastic science-fiction action comic book hero based on a soda pop?  Answer, Portland, Me. writer/artist, Jap Piscopo, that's who!  Within a few minutes of the comic show being in progress, this excited fellow comes up to my table, hand out stretched and tells me he's a friend of Rick Lowell (Rick is an old pal who owns and manages Casablanca Comics, two of the finest comic shops in all the country) and that he loves my Captain Hazzard pulps.   He then proceeds to tell me about this venture he's promoting based on a beverage company out of Portland that produces CaptN Eli's Root Beer!  No lie!  Somehow the people making this product got it into their head that getting a comic book out there with the same name would be a unique marketing tool.  It was their good fortune to find Jay Piscopo.  Jay's an industry professional who has talent coming out of his ears.  He knows the ins and outs of graphic storytelling like the pro he is and when offered this job, he immediately upped the ante by inventing a character that is so much fun, he harkens back to the classic live action cartoon series, JONNY QUEST.  Eli, his dog and parrot are just so cool, I could spent this entire log ranting about their exploits.  So far Jay and company have produced two issues (that's number 1 above with the gorgeous Steve Rude cover).  If you love a rollicking good adventure, filled with awe and wonder, and you have kids, you have to get them these books.  Simply Google the title and go find them.  Trust me, you will thank me.  I'm getting extra copies for my grandson Alex for Christmas, that's how much I love CaptN Eli.  Oh, and part of the supporting cast includes a pulp-like hero named Commander X.  Well, after hooking up for the very first time at the show, I came home and write a very short Commander X pulp story that will eventually get published either in a future issue or at their website.  Now that's just too cool.

One of the finest instructional magazines on the market today for would-be comic book creators is called SKETCH and one of its editors is a fellow named Bill Nichols.  Over the life of the magazine, emphasis has been slanted on the art of comics and teaching it.  Ergo, there's been little focus put on the writing end of things, which is where your old Air Chief comes in.  Recently Bill put out a call for articles of any kind relating to the making of a comic book.  As it turns out, I am in the middle of putting together a presentation package for a possible new mini series with the help of a Brazilian artist named Danyael Lopes.  I contacted Bill and asked if Sketch would like to publish our proposal as we put it together, step by step and he thought that was a super idea.  So this current issue, now on your the newstands, has my idea, how I came up with it and then worked it into a full blown plot summary plot to send to Danyael.  Next issue will showcase the first actual character sketches he had sent in based on this summary.  In future installments you'll get to read my 5 page sample script and see how Danyael turned them into rough thumbnails and then full blown, completed comic pages.  So, loyal airmen, if you, or someone you know, has ever wanted to know how comic book professionals put together a presentation to submit to publishers, please, pick up a copy of SKETCH # 37, they are usually available at most comic shops.

And that's it for the Friday before Thanksgiving.  Valerie left for Colorado yesterday with our daughter Michelle and granddaughters, Kristi & Chelsea.  They are spending Thanksgiving with our son, Alan and his family.  Its the first time the four cousins meet and the first time Alan and Michelle have seen each other in over ten years.  Val called last night to tell me the airport reunion last evening was something truly beautiful.  So I couldn't be happier. As to why I'm not there enjoying all this, well the Air Chief has two very special dates for Thanksgiving dinner next week, Val's mother, Lorraine and my own Mom.  I'm taking both these lovely ladies to a marvelous local restaurant for a delicious, home style turkey dinner.  Yum! 

So a few words here to wish all of you a truly HAPPY THANKSGIVING.  All of you will be in my prayers that day, when I thank God for my life and blessings.   And finally, be sure to be back here next Friday for a really special Log Entry.  I'm going to show you how Rob Davis and I put together the cover for our latest Secret Agent X pulp.  I promise, you'll will all get a kick out of this. Till then, be happy, and don't eat too much turkey…you have to save room for the apple pie!!

Ron – Over & Out.
                             

Greetings loyal airmen, well the store signing at the Barnes & Noble in Manchester, NH, went off extremely well this past Tues. evening, Nov. 11th.

The store Events Manager is Karen Creed and she is one of the nicest people your old Air Chief has ever had the good fortune of meeting.  Karen went out of her way to make me feel welcome and had everything ready to go when I arrived.   My participation was part of a high school fundraiser hosted by the football team of Raymond High School, where my brother-in-law, Norman Cormier is the coach.  Which is why you see a few football jerseys in my audience above.  To start everything off, they had me do a reading.  I chose the prologue from WITCHFIRE and seemed to muddle through okay.  Although I have to confess, its a whole lot easier writing those words than it is standing up in front of people and reading them aloud.  Swear and cuss words never seem so awkward on the printed page, but when you are verbalizing SH*T and BI**H aloud, well that's a whole other thing.  Ha.  Still, we managed to push through.

                                            Your old Air Chief and Events Manager Karen Creed

Once the reading was all wrapped up, I, and all the books Karen had ordered for the signing, were carried to the front entrance of the store and set up anew.  Of course it was helpful to have a half dozen strong football players along for that task.  Took them all of five minutes to get this moved and ready.  Once there, I then spent the next two hours greeting Barnes & Nobles customers coming into the store, as well as saying so-long to those leaving. I like to be an equal opportunity greeter.  Ha.  Karen had gotten in twenty copies of BROTHER BONES, WITCHIFRE, CAPTAIN HAZZARD # 3 (CURSE OF THE RED MAGGOT) and # 4 (CAVEMEN OF NEW YORK) plus the PHANTOM CHRONICLES anthology from Moonstone Books with my story in it.  Ergo, a full 100 copies of my writings.  Wow!! I have never seen so many of my books together like this.  It was both daunting and humbling.  And of course it was now my job to sell them all.  Ha.  Not likely.  Although, in all honesty, we did move quite a few, which was awesome as I got to meet and chat with so many truly wonderful people.  All of them readers.  In other words, my kind of people.  I got to promote the gospel of pulps and maybe made a few new converts while I was there.  Time will tell.

At the end of my visit, Karen invited me to return in Jan. when she will be hosting a writers forum specifically for local teachers groups.  She became very excited when I informed her of my thirty five years of writing comic books and the lectures I've given to teaching groups in the past.  That done, she had me autograph a good portion of the unsold copies and we bid each other farewell.  My first ever bookstore signing had been a tremendous success and on a personal note, just tons of fun.  Writing is a lonely task, so the opportunity to get out and meet fans is the icing on this cake.

Speaking of such, don't forget this coming Sunday, loyal airmen.  Your old Air Chief is going to be one of  dozens of wonderful comic book creators all appearing at the one day Portsmouth Comic Show in the Best Western Motel located on the Porstmouth Traffic Circle.  Show is from 10 AM to 3 PM.  I really hope lots of you loyal airmen will make the tirp down, or up, as the case may be.  This is going to be a truly great show.

On other fronts, the past few days has seen an electrical evolution here at Hanger 27.  Valerie and I are planning on spending the last two weeks of the year out in Ft.Collins, CO. with our son, Alan, and his family.  Realizing I would still need to be connected to do my editing chores for Airship 27 Prod. Valerie made the decision to get a wireless account for our laptop PC.  So as of now, we are wired to the world.  Very cool.  Meaning, I'll most likely be writing several of these log entries from Colorado and able to wish you all timely seasons greetings.  Too cool.  What with this being done, I decided it was high time I got with the program and agreed at long last to go and get a cell phone.   Your Air Chief is old fashion in many things and I never completely bought into the fact that people have to be connected every single minute of the day to the point of carrying a telephone with them.  There seems to be an inflated concept of self-worth that comes with such a toy.  People thinking they are so important that others want to contact them all the time.  Believe me, I've never had that mistaken illusion.  Ha.  Yet, in the coming months I am planning on doing some serious traveling to various conventions, including the big Comic Con in New York City come the start of Feb. 09.    I realized the logistics of this trip would be tricky as I'm traveling with one group of people and staying with another group.  Coordinating this trip could be a real hassle and worst scenario, leave your old Air Chief stranded in the Big Apple without a ride home.  A cell phone of my own was the obvious solution and so I bit the bullet.

Thank God I've got teenage granddaughters who can show me how to use it!!!  I tried reading the accompanying manual and all I did was get a headache, yet Kristi (who turned 17 yesterday) simply picked up my little new gizmo and instantly began using it, added names and phones and showing me how it all functions.  It truly is their world now, all these fancy new marvels we've come to take for granted.  Simply amazing.

And there you have it, loyal airmen.  Thanks as always for stopping by and have a great week.
Ron – Over & Out.

Greetings, loyal airmen.  Another week has rolled on by and with many, many changes, both public and personal.  The last time I posted a log entry it was to wish all of you a Happy Halloween as Valerie and I headed down to Bethel, Conn. to spend the weekend with son Scott, his wife Katie and grand kids, Taryn & Logan.  It was a truly gorgeous train ride down the eastern coast, both ways, and we had a great time.  In fact, while Scott and Katie took the kids Trick or Treating Friday night, Valerie and your old Air Chief manned the candy station by the front down and for several hours confronted dozens of scary ghosts and goblins of all shapes and sizes.  Let me tell you, it was the most fun we've had in ages.  Our own home sets on the outskirts of town and save for family and a few other kids, we really don't get any of this kind of activity.  So we thoroughly had a great time.  We did take some pictures but I don't have them readily available right now.  Thing is, Taryn opted to go out in the same original costume her father built for her two years ago…as a birthday cake!

So I dug out this two year old photo out of the files.  Taryn, amazingly, is much taller, but her growth spurt seems to have been in her legs, as she was actually able to fit her torso into the costume with absolutely no problems. All of us were amazed.  Scott has those two candle lights hooked up to batteries and when she was walking along the street in the dark, both were lit.  It's a truly ingenious costume and you can see why she, and the rest of us all loved it.  Oh, and if you are curious, younger brother Logan went in his doctor's scrubs.  He was so cute.

Now the birthday theme has relevancy for your old Air Chief, but let's work that in with the proper sequencing.  We got home early Sunday afternoon and on Tuesday morning, Nov. 4th, used our daily hike to walk downtown to the polls and vote in the election.  It ended up being an historical event as Barack Obama become the first black American to win the office of president.  Have you ever wished you wrong about something?  I didn't vote for Senator Obama because I did not believe he was either qualified or experienced enough to be president. Now that he has won that office, it has not changed my opinion.  The only difference now is that I very much want to be proven wrong.  Before anything else, Republican or Democrat, we are all Americans and as such, I will support this man totally, praying every day that he rises to the overwhelming challenges that face our great country.  It truly is time to put the bickering of politics aside, roll up our sleeves and get to work fixing those problems that confront us all.

On Wed. Nov. 5th, your old Air Chief became 62 years old.  And Valerie set out to make it a very special day all around.  My favorite food in the entire world is crepes and every year, on my birthday, she makes me a stack of these delicious, thin and sweet breakfast treats.  A little butter, some maple syrup and your Old Chief was in seventh heaven.  Oh, yeah.  Then spent the day together getting some errands run, going out for lunch and just having a wonderful time.  My e-mail was filled all day with lots of wonderful birthday well wishes from friends and family. Thanks to each and every one of you for taking the time to send those greetings.  They mean a lot to me. Your Air Chief is truly a blessed soul when it comes to the marvelous friends I have in you loyal airmen.

It was towards the end of that fun day that I discovered that one of my farovirte writers had passed.  The only sad note to my celebration.   Science fiction and thriller bestselling novelist, Michael Crichton died of cancer at the age of 66.   I was a huge fan of his books like JURASSIC PARK and EATERS OF THE DEAD, TIMELINE and CONGO to name only a few.   Crichton had a way of exploring scientific themes that question the morality of our society and asked the right questions in the process.  They were thought provoking as well as action filled and he stood head and shoulders above his peers.  His passing was a great loss to all who love to read.  66!  That's just too young.

Finally I wanted to share with all you loyal airmen one of my surprise goodies.  Valerie and I are both suckers for good, uplifting sports movies and this past week we latched on to one that is just terrific.

It's called THE FINAL SEASON and stars Sean Astin and Powers Boothe.  It tells the true story of Norway,  Iowa, a small town that for twenty (2-0!) years won the state baseball championship!  That has got to be the single longest sport team record ever completed!  The movie tells the story of their final season, and how state officials set about closing the school for heartless economic reasons.  What your old Air Chief loved about this story is that although it is about a baseball team and its players and coaches, the underlying theme exposes the continuing extinction of rural American small towns; the once moral cornerstone of our society.  Thus it is both a sad and feel-good movie all of you should see.  Sadly it was never released to theaters and I was just lucky enough to read about on-line months ago so that when I saw this copy at a local store, I scoffed it up sight unseen and am delighted to have done so.  This is a truly one of a kind story.

Also, for all you techy airmen, Scott has added that RSS Feed at the top of the column.  He tells me this will allow of you to subscribe via your I-pods or whatever to this blog.  How cool is that?  Thanks, Scott.

And there you have it, loyal airmen.  Before signing off, let remind you that I will be doing my first ever bookstore signing this coming Tuesday (Veteran's Day) 11th Nov. at 3 PM at the Barnes & Noble on South Willow St. in Manchester.  If you are anywhere nearby, please stop on in and say.   Your Air Chief could use all the support he can get. Ha.

Ron – Over & Out.