Greetings Loyal Airmen.  While attending the gigantic New Comic Con way-way back in Feb. of this year, we had the good fortune to meet a talented young writer named Adam Garcia.  Our meeting let to Adam signing on to write pulps for Airship 27 Productions and the character he asked to write was none other than the Green Lama, one of the coolest, most fondly remembered pulp heroes of them all.  As it happened, one of our veteran writers, Kevin Olson had been asking me to do this character as well for several years.  Now that we had two writers on board, we officially launched the project, and sought out one more writer to complete the package. Within a week of all this, writer Peter Miller wrote and said he wanted in.  Voila, we had our writers and the book started to happen.  Of course the next big step at Airship 27 is finding the art team to do the interiors and the cover.  We hit a gold mine in that department, thanks to my friendship with Maine artist supreme, and all around nice guy, Jay Piscopo.

When Jay learned we were going to be doing a Green Lama book, he whipped up the above, very, very cool pin-up of that mystic avenger.  We were immediately blown away and signed Jay on to handle the twelve black and white interior illustrations that grace the volume.  And don't fret, Loyal Airmen, we never ever waste a gorgeous piece of art.  The above colored piece is part of our back cover.  Okay, so we had the illustrations taken care of, but who to do the painted cover.  It was Jay again to rescue in that months earlier he had introduced us, via the internet, to British artist, Mike Fyles.  Mike has an unabashed love for pulp covers and is an expert of creating aged-looking pulp covers that appear to have come from someone's attic box.  We wrote Mike and offered him the gig, if he could do the cover in traditional oil/acrylic paints.  Mike responded instantly a big fat, YES.  And so we were off and running.

Somewhere in Kevin's adventure story, the Green Lama and a young boy are confronted by a fericious snow leopard while trekking through the mountains of Tibet.  Jay had done this scene as a black and white illustration for us and we thought it might also make for a really great, dramatic pulp cover.  We explained the scene to Mike and he composed the above on his computer and sent it in.  The cat was great but we needed the Lama and the boy to be further in the picture, with their backs against a cliff's edge to added even more drama.

                
This pen and ink-wash progression was much in keeping with our vision.  Yet it too still had problems.  One being the cat's head was way too close to the Lama.  Plus the Lama's posture, though protecting the boy, just didn't seem to work right.  We suggested to Mike that he have the Lama's hands up weaving some mystical signs to ward of the cat.

With each new step, the picture was evolving into what we had imagined, and a truly great pulp cover.  The cat had become a lot more menacing, there was the narrow cliff's edge at our characters' backs and now the Lama looked to being doing his mystic thing and warding off the threat.  One single element needed to be altered, and that was the tiny Tibetan monastery in the background.  Airship 27 Art Director did a little photo-shop magic on it and expanded it into a complex type affair to show Mike what we needed.  Now it was time for color.

When we saw this rendering we were thrilled.  The cover was almost 100%.  But the one nagging element was the boy's white tunic.  We felt there was already so much white with the snow and all, that it just caused our eyes to look away from the rest of the scene, in particular our hero.  We asked Mike to make the boy's clothing all one color.  He did so happily and we knew we had a solid, stunning pulp cover.  Mike's amazing contribution was finished.  Now it was up to Rob to do his design magic.

And above you have the completed cover to Airship 27 Productions 18th pulp title, THE GREEN LAMA Vol One.  The book is now available for sale at our on-line store.  Simply click on the dirigible logo to the left of the column.  We hope it is only the first in a long running series.

We hope you Loyal Airmen have enjoyed seeing how this book came together and as always we thank you from the heart for you continued support of all our efforts.  A special Air Chief salute goes out to Adam Garcia, Kevin Olson, Peter Miller, Jay Piscopo, Mike Fyles, Michael Poll and my good pal and partner, Rob Davis. Thanks all for your great work on this super cool book.

Ron – Over & Out