Greetings loyal airmen.  Sorry to be riffing off a classic Spaghetti western, but the truth of it is, the range of subject matter I will be discussing this week covers a lot of that ground.   After my somber comments last week, my good friend and colleague, Mark Justice, wrote to let me know my information on the grade school teacher attacked in her classroom wasn't complete accurate.  Happily so, as she did not die and is recovering even as I write these words.  Her messed up husband though, did climax the horror by taking his own life.  Now all of this started an exchange of e-mails between myself and Mark which led him to report what investigators uncovered during this entire sad affair.  The gentlemen who went nuts had several years earlier been prescribed the drug Oxycntin and become addicted to it.  It then went on to take over his personality and entire life.  In the end he was so eratic, his wife, the teacher, had no recourse but to file for divorce and then it was just one tragedy after another.  Mark went on to detail how crimes in his neck of the woods, small town America, have risen greatly due in part to people needing cash to buy more drugs.  Perscription drug abuse is a national catastrophe that truly threatens every aspect of our lives.  It is absued by the doctors and drug companies to are more interested in getting rich than actually treating us, and by people themselves, too lazy to do anything but pop a pill and believe it is the panacea sent from heaven.  From the Ridlin we dope our children to the rise of autism in those same kids.  We are drugging ouselves to death!!!  This was not the way I'd hoped to begin this week's entry, but then yesterday a student some Illinois college west of Chicago took a shotgun to school and went on a killing spree.  As of this morning, I'm hearing six lives are lost, not counting the shooter.  Now here's my bet, when all is said and done, what to do you want to bet we will all be told the fellow was…..on medication!

Getting away from the horrors of the every day world we live in, I want to offer my condolences today to the family of Steve Gerber, who passed away earlier this week.  During the 1970s, when Marvel Comics was exploding with vibrancy and creativity, giving the entire comics industry a much needed lift, one of its premier writer/editors was Steve Gerber.  I never met the man personally, but I was a fan.  I liked his work a great deal, especially his run on the team book, THE DEFENDERS.  Steve seemed to have a special knack of infusing characters with an odd humor that was completely human and ream.  He died of a lung disease in Los Vegas, he was only 61 and will be greatly missed by all of us who love comics.

                             
And speaking of that media, allow me to point you in the direction of a truly terrific new title soon to be available from AC Comics, GREEN LAMA.   The Green Lama was a pulp hero from the 30s who appeared both in his own pulp monthly but eventually jumped over to the comics as well.  Now, after many years absent, he is back in a brand new, thrilling adventure by my good friend, artist James Ritchey.  Jim has spent over the last two years of his life meticulous researching this classic hero and writing/drawing the maspterpiece of his career.  Hell, that cover alone shoule be enough to get you diehards to go and grab a copy of this soon be classic.  Way to go, Jim.  I hope the Green Lama is back to stay for a long, long time.

So, loyal airmen, question for you, where do you buy most of my novels?  Recently our new publisher of Airship 27 Production pulps, asked that very question.  “Where do people go to buy your books?”  Do they go to Amazon, do they go to Barnes & Noble, or do they go to Lulu on the net?  Of course from what I've been led to understand, most of the airmen here have either gone to Lulu or Amazon, but that's just guess work on my part.  We would really like to know, so you can consider this an informal survey.  Please, if you have bought any of the ten pulp classics I helped produced over the past two and a half years, drop me a line and let me know where you purchased it.

The real reason for all this is that, as we promised you months ago when those old titles were deleted from our former publisher's catalog, we are going to reprint most of them in new editions and we have begun that very work.  As in evidence from the reworked cover below.

We are just about ready to open our brand new official AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS LULU STORE.  Come back next Friday for the big announcement and the actual link to this spiffy new pulp store.  We've high hopes for this venture and hope all you loyal airmen will continue to support us.  Till then, have a great week,  Spring is just around the corner.  As for the dark threads that began this column, always keep in mind, good wins over evil when YOU do good things.

Ron – Over & Out