Greeting Loyal Airmen, this week's topic ( or rant if you will ) is centered around the Air Chief's past experiences with those people who own the rights to certain fictional properties and how most of them are Class A jerks who do nothing but cause grief and headaches for the very creative people trying to make them money.

Many, many years ago, the Air Chief was hired by a small time independent black and white comics publisher to do a five issue mini-series based on a very popular fictional movie action hero.  Being a Vietnam veteran, we jumped at the chance of writing this character's future exploits but at the same time saw the potential to round out the hero and go beyond just the “grunts” he would utter in the movies; to flesh out his background, show how he became this exemplary fighting patriot who lived only to served his country and his fellow warriors.

We wrote the entire series and our editor loved what we had done.  They assigned the scripts to an up and coming young artist and we were off to the races.  Several months later my editor called to say we had hit a speed-bump.  Apparently the licensors of the property, after reading my scripts, were not at all happy with our approach, complaining they only wanted to see endless action without any character development scenes at all.  Ergo, the publisher, having no choice, had the editor cut out everything we written in the first two chapters except the action pieces and put them together into book # 1 and release it.  Well, naturally it then made no sense at all, the book bombed and the series canceled.  Trust me, considering how they had butchered our story, we were not sad to see this die on the vine.  Thanks for nothing, licensors.

Of course we never -ever get rid of any story we've ever put to paper and for nearly thirty years all five of those scripts sat in our files just awaiting the right time to roll around when it would be feasible to dust them off and do something with them.  Lo and behold, print-on-demand via the internet has now allowed any creator to become his or her own publisher.  Months ago, while at a local convention, the Air Chief met a retired Army Sergeant, Kevin Johnson and the subject turned to comic book graphics.  A talented artists, Kevin was hoping to get into the field and hoped we might have something for him to sink his creative teeth into.  BINGO!!!  We immediately remembered those scripts based on that former commando and brought them up to Kevin.  We talked about how relatively easy it would be to alter the scripts, modernize the action and create from them a whole new hero no-one had ever seen before.  Someone that we would share complete ownership of from day one.

Meet Richard Lyon, an ex-Navy Seal trying to find his place in the world; a champion to defend the weak and a crusader bring down America's terrorist foes.  During his service days, his codename was BLACK LION.  The Air Chief has totally re-written this saga as a graphic novel and the team assembled to bring it to you is stellar.  Joining Kevin and the Air Chief are Mark Stegbauer, inker, and T. Warren Montgomery providing letters and colors.  Rob Davis will be the book's editor and it will be released via his indepedent line, REDBUD STUDIO.  Believe me when we say, all of us connected with BLACK LION are really excited about this project and in particular this character.

So it is safe to say, thanks to those idiots licensors who so long ago shot us down, they actually did us a favor because what has risen up from those ashes is something a whole lot more exciting.  Stay tuned, Loyal Airmen.

Ron – Over & Out!