Airship 27 Productions is one of the major New Pulp publishers.
Headed by editor-in-chief Ron Fortier and art director Rob Davis, it has put out many excellent volumes, with interior artwork (usually by Davis), great cover artwork, and marked with the Airship 27 logo.
There are various original works by both Fortier and many others, and featuring characters such as Fortier’s Brother Bones, Chuck Miller‘s Bay Phantom, and B.C. Bell‘s Bagman. There are several series which give new stories of classic characters such as Bulldog Drummond, Sun Koh, The Purple Scar, The Black Bat, and Domino Lady, and its long-running Sherlock Holmes series.
I first became aware of Airship 27 when they were producing books through Wildcat Books. I was impressed by the overall design quality of its works as compared to the other Wildcat Books. But I assume there was friction between Fortier and Wildcat owner Ron Hanna. So soon Airship 27 broke out as a separate publisher in 2008. At first they were associated with Cornerstone Publishing, then they went fully indepedent. This left several of its works that had been done with Wildcat in limbo. Thankfully most were eventually reprinted. (A few weren’t, due to the authors not wanted to do so.)
If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ve read my many reviews of Airship 27 works. I have nearly 50 of its works, with several more on my want list, and looking forward to more.
As I noted, in addition to being great reads, Airship 27 is notable for its great design work on its volumes. Not everyone putting out works through print-on-demand is able to do this. We are fortunate that many New Pulp publishers are able to do a great job here. I like that they are able to include interior artwork, just like the old pulp magazines. Airship 27’s covers and logo work are also great. I do like the original Sherlock Holmes logo, and was sad they had to change it (due to it not working well in small size on Amazon).
Here are some of the great works and series that I have noted here, in no particular order:
•&ndbp;Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. This series has 15 volumes of new Holmes short stories, as well as a couple of novels and a couple of volumes focused on Watson. While I am behind in my obtaining and reading this series, this has been an excellent one from the start.
•&ndbp;Captain Hazzard. Fortier has taken on revamping this one-hit wonder, a Doc Savage-inspired character. He fixed the original story, then reworked his second story that had been turned into a Secret Agent X story, turning it back to a Hazzard novel. We’ve gotten five volumes in total, and I hope to see more. We are also promised a Captain Hazzard comic story, which will be great.
•&ndbp;Mystery Men & Women. This series is kind of a showcase of New Pulp heroes but many haven’t shown up in new stories. Yet. Five volumes with a sixth on its way.
I’ve noted some of the other classic pulp heroes Airship 27 has done new stories with. Others include Jim Anthony, The Phantom Detective, and Ravenwood. And we’ve gotten series of New Pulp heroes as I’ve noted.
There’s the massive Legends of New Pulp Fiction, which I need to do a posting on.
And there have been several original novels as well.
For those who want etext versions, Airship 27 does that, too. Audio versions are done through Audible and Radio Archives. And Redbud Studio has related comicbooks.
So there is a lot of good work coming from Airship 27. Check it out.
