A Pulp & Paperback Collector Checks Out Old Treasures

Greetings Loyal Airmen.  This Flight Log goes up a few hours late this glorious Friday morning, only because last week's trip to Chicago to attend the 11th Windy City Paper & Pulp Show was both fun and exhausting. The Air Chief's stamina isn't all it used to be when he was in his twenties and thirties.  Hahaha. Still the trip was a blast and we're told by con promoter, Doug Ellis, the best thus far in attendance with 447 registered attendees.  We believe Doug, as we think most all 447 stop by our table to say and buy some of our Airship 27 books and DVR Disc.  Oh yeah, that was something else we did this year, all thanks to partner Rob Davis.  We actually sold pdfs of our titles which Rob had downloaded to a digital stick.  We had a catalog with color images of all 35 of our covers and a customer only had to look through it, pick out the titles they wanted, for only $3 each, and the Rob would proceed to use his laptop to burn each pdf to a single disc.  Our first digital customer actually bought 11 of our titles like this.  We've really entered the digital age now!!

        
                           The Air Chief  – Ray Riethmeier & Rob Davis

Of course aside from selling our pulp titles, the main reason Rob and the Air Chief have been attending this show for the past five years (this was our sixth trip) is to meet our colleagues and fantastic fans.  One such was Ray Riethmeier who walked up to our table wearing the oh-so-cool brand new Sky Captain Ron tee-shirt.  (See above).  And as promised, for his efforts in help promote us, Ray walked away with a free copy of our comic book, Mr.Jigsaw – Man of a Thousand Parts # 1 autographed by yours truly.  The tee really looked awesome and Ray reports he got great comments on it from other con-goers all weekend.

Another Loyal Airmen who made the trip was regular John Bodnar, who had recently undergone serious knee surgery and he was in pain just being there.  He told us no amount of such was going to keep him from going to this show, one of his favorite things.  Now that's a Loyal Airman. Get well soon, amigo.  Of course Rob and the Air Chief did hook up with lots of old colleagues such as, Mark Halegua, Chris Bell, Joe Gentile of Moonstone and Wayne Reinagel of Knightraven Studios. We also met new amigos in Tommy Hancock & Bumper Fullers of Pro Se Productions.  These are the guys putting on the new Pulp Ark show next month (May 15th) in Batesville, Arkansas, which we will be attending.  And finally, western pulp writer Thomas McNulty and his lovely wife,
Jan and fantasy author Larry Santoro and his charming wife, Tycelia.  All truly wonderful new friends.

Of course the Air Chief always look to buy at least one fun item at each of these shows.  Usually in the past it had been serial cliffhangers on DVDs.  But not this year. Rather we picked up this great remastered set of the original 1985 Doc Savage radio adventures produced for Public Radio.  Over the years pulp fans have had to do with degraded mp3 files found on-line.  Now Radio Archives has put out this amazing set and the sound quality if fantastic.  Hours of great melodrama fun with Doc and his crew. The set included the two book adaptations plus a behind the scene audio documentary on the making of the show.  For any pulp lover, this is one package you have to have.

And there you have it, Loyal Airmen.  Note, we do have dozens of photos and as always we'll be parceling them on out here for the next several weeks.  As for the Air Chief, he's going to be writing a up full con-report for the Comic Related website, then start thinking of what we're going to be bringing to Pulp Ark now only three weeks away.  Till next week, take care as always,
Ron – Over & Out