Greeting Loyal Airmen, as you are reading this, Thanksgiving has come and gone and many of you are probably caught up in the Black Friday shopping frenzy. First of all, let me say the Air Chief hopes all of you and your loved ones had a great day yesterday, ate lots of good food and said thanks for all your blessings.  We here at Hangar 27 HQ consider all our Loyal Airmen a blessing. We couldn't do what we do without your continued support, so God bless each and everyone one of you during this wonderful season.

So now, let's see what the Air Chief's been up to, beside stuffing himself with delicious goodies.  How about our latest writing project which we just put THE END to a few days ago.  It seems like for the past several weeks we've been surrounded by Tough Guys.

                                       
                                                Actors Lloyd Nolan & Jan Wiley

Being the movie buff that he is, the Air Chief has always loved the gangster movies and those Private Eye thrillers that exemplified the black and white movies of the 1940s & 50s.  Cruel mobsters, hot women, Tommy Guns, car chases and non-nonsense G-Men.  All were iconic characters in many Warner Brothers movie featuring actors like Edward G.Robinson, James Cagney, Humphrey and Lloyd Nolan seen in the picture above.  So when writers Bobby Nash & Sean Taylor created a new tough-guy Shamus from the 1930s named Rick Ruby and inquired as to whether Airship 27 Productions would like to chronicle his exploits, we totally jumped at the chance and earlier in the year released the first volume of THE RUBY FILES.

Along with Bobby & Sean, writers Andrew Salmon William Maynard joined the party and contributed stories,
and thus we had our four stories.  Mark Wheatley provided the cover, Art Director Rob Davis did up the
back cover and off to the presses we went.  Oh, and let me not forget, providing the amazing interior illustrations
was a new discovery for us, artist Rob Moran.

The book did extremely well for us and immediately Bobby & Sean began discussing a sequel. Along that time
Sean dropped me a line and knowing of my enthusiasm for the character suggested the Air Chief write a Rick
Ruby story.  Now, having been the Managing Editor of Airship 27 Productions, we had written our own novels
and story collections from the Captain Hazzard books to the Brother Bones volume but the one thing we had
never done was contribute a story to a regular anthology such as this.  Still, the temptation to play in this world of
tough guys was too great to pass up and we accepted Sean's gracious offer.  Earlier this week we wrapped up
a Rick Ruby story entitled THE LONG KILL which will see the light of day sometime in 2013, so stay tuned.
We had a blast writing it and hope you'll enjoy it.  THE RUBY FILES Vol II will also feature a story by Alan
Porter and another each from Bobby & Sean.  Looks to be another great package.

                                 
                                             Illustration by Ron Moran

Now you'll recall we mentioned the artist who provided the interior illustrations for THE RUBY FILES was Rob Moran.  Above his one of those gorgeous piece.  Rob has a truly love of those old black and white gangster movies and was the perfect choice to round out this book's creative team.  People who've seen his art are just bowled away.  About the same time we were releasing this book, a New York writer named Terrence McCauley submitted a gangster novel to us called PROHIBITION that took place in the 1930s.  After reading the first few chapters, we gladly accepted it for publication, although we weren't sure it would see print this year.
While editing this superior work, we kept remembering Rob Moran's work and knew once again he would be the one and only artist to do justice to McCauley's tough guy yarn.  So eventually we approached him and much to our delight, Rob agreed to take on the assignment and promised to being work on it starting in November.

So here we are, almost done the month and we are thrilled to announce Rob not only honored his commitment and has completed nine truly wonderful pieces but since then agreed to do our cover as well.  Rob Davis and the Air Chief couldn't be any happier.  And so it looks like PROHIBITION  will be out some time in mid-Dec, making it our 16th title of the year.  Before it, we've still got a super-duper space opera called THREE AGAINST THE STARS coming your way in just another few weeks.  Sixteen titles in one year!!  A new record for Airship 27 Productions.  Not too bad for just two guys with a fondness for the old pulps.

So that's how the Air Chief has kicked off his holiday season, with turkey and tough-guys. And has loved every bit of it. Stay tuned for more info as the book nears publication and as ever, thanks so much for stopping by.  Be safe out there and see you back here next Friday.
Ron – Over & Out!