Greetings Loyal Airmen, last week we showed off three new pages from our new western comic, “Hamlet’s End.” Written by yours truly and art by good buddy Zane DeGaine. All of this came about when shortly after settling in Fort Collins, Zane and his wife Olivia, joined the Air Chief and Valerie in going out to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner one night. While awaiting our entrees, we asked Zane what kind of project he’d like to work on. Of course our intent was find out what he had a passion for and then seeing if it was something we might be able to offer him. “Westerns,” was his immediate reply.

It took a few years, but eventually the Air Chief came up with an solid idea for a western and that was “Hamlet’s End.” Zane read the script last year, loved it, and signed on. He even went as far as to do a short ash-can issue featuring the first 9 pages (above left) and sold them at a local con. Now he’s hard at work on completing the entire 22 pg first issue. Here’s pg # 13 (above right). His hope is to have it done within the next couple of weekss, and then he’s going to start a Kickstarter Campaign for it. Trust us, Loyal Airmen, the Air Chief is totally wound for sound about “Hamlet’s End.” Zane’s work on this comics is stunning and we can’t wait until the day you get to read it. We’ll keep youposted.

THE CRIMSON NUN

At the same time artist Jesse Thomas is back hard at work on the pencils for The Crimson Nun # 2. See those gorgeous pages above and that one sketch of our hero, Gabrielle Joan Cauxvette. You’ll allow the Air Chief grace for naming her after our mother, Gabrielle. And as far as we know, Antarctic Press is still set on releasing issue # 1 next month, Oct. Stay tuned, Loyal Airmen.

BROTHER BONES THE UNDEAD AVENGER

The Brother Bones graphic novel, now coming to life thanks to artist Joe Arnold, is also gaining steam  indicative of the pencil roughs above. Joe says he’s having a ball drawing this origin tale of our Undead Avenger and we can tell from the enthusiasm he’s exhibiting in his art.

Joe’s been using pages from a 1930s Sears & Roebucks catalog to research dresses for our female characters. His hope is to have 50 pgs completed before we start assembling the Kickstarter campaign. Dang, but we do have lots of fun stuff on the way, Loyal Airmen. Start saving up your pennies.

SPECIAL HARDBACK EDITION OUT!

As you’ll recall only two weeks ago we released our Super Special Edition of Sherlock Holmes – Consulting Detective Vol 20. We made a big deal out of this because Art Director did the issue up to look like a copy of the actual Strand Magazine where most of the original Sherlock Holmes tales had first appeared in print. About the same time we’d also released the hardback edition of “Metropolis – Resurrection,” the sci-fi prequel novel. So…a few smart Loyal Airmen went to Rob and asked why not a hardback edition of the special Consulting Detective. Ever one to satisfy our readers, Rob got on it immediately and now if you head on over to Amazon, you can pick this volume in four editions. First on Kindle, then our regular paperback size, then our bigger magazine size…and now that larger size in hard back. Hopefully that pleases all you terrific Holmes & Watson fans out there.

NEW PROSE FICTION STORY

Back at this year’s Windy City Pulp & Paper con, we talked with writer Bob Mendenhall about possibly writing a story for his terrific Codename – Intrepid action series featuring a super-secret military team. Bob graciously gave us the green light and we recently wrapped up a story featuring Master Sergeant “Hammer” Downe (above right) called “The Lost Jungle.” Thanks to pal Lee Houston Jr. who helped with formatting. That’s a terrific sketch of Hammer by artist Ron Randall and the link below is to Bob’s site. Check it out, Loyal Airmen. This is the good stuff.

(https://robertjmendenhall.com/code-name-intrepid/)

ANOTHER AUDIO BOOK ADDED

A little while back Art Director Rob Davis decided to try posting one of our novels to Audible via its Amazon listing. I.e. Amazon makes this arrangement and Audible uses AI voices to do the narration. His first attempt was with one of Nancy Hansen’s Jezebel Johnston pirate books and everyone thought it worked better than expected. With that positive result, he’s now put up one of our Sherlock Holmes Consulting Anthologies, Vol 17 to be specific (see cover above) which features stories by I.A. Watson, R.A. Jones, George Tackes and Jonathan Casey. It’s now up at the Amazon page. If you enjoy audio book downloads, go on and give it a try. You may be pleasantly surprised.

BEYOND THE STARS # 4

And finally the biggest news of this week. Artist Andrea Bormida has finished work on our sci-fi series, “Beyond the Stars” # 4. The pages are now in letterer Mike Belcher’s talented hands and as soon as he wraps it up, the book will be delivered to Silverline Comics. As this is a six part mini-series, we are left with only to chapters left. Thanks again for all your Loyal Airmen who have helped by supporting the funding campaigns for the first three issues. We’ll let you know when this one is up.

And phew, Loyal Airmen, that’s plenty for one week. Ha. As Ever thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you all back here next Friday morning.

Ron – Over & Out!