Tag Archives: Ron Fortier

Aircel and Nightwynd

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This Logo for Aircel was established some time in 1986 and was used until about 1989.

For those those of you who are already familiar with Canadian comics, you’ll know all about Aircel. For those of you who don’t, it was one of the most successful and well known publishers of the Canada’s eighties alternative comics inside Canada. Hopefully this post will be informative either way.

Officially founded in September of 1985 by Barry Blair and Ken Campbell, the roots of Aircel had long since been established. Campbell, the owner of an insulation installation company (Aircel Insulation) had lost his contract with the government at which his enthused employee wasted no time in trying to persuade him to move in the direction of comics. It worked, and Aircel Insulation then became Aircel comics.

Samurai, officially their first title, had been in print long before Aircel was producing comics, as was Elflord and Dragonring. These were the house titles Blair published under Nightwynd productions which had been publishing since the beginning of the eighties. Interestingly, many of these featured the work of a very young artist by the name of Dave Cooper. Some of the other artists featured in Nightwynd at this time were Mike Burchill, Donald Lanouette, Ron Fortier, Tim McEown, and Guang Yap, the latter two which continued to work with Aircel for a very long time. The majority of these comics were black and white, oversized and were somewhere between a small press comic and a fanzine. The quality improved greatly when they were moved over to Aircel which made the comic in the traditional size with colour covers and newsprint interior.

The comics did very well. After a short first volume of black and white interiors they introduced the second volume in full colour. Blair, having grown up all over Asia, was very familiar with manga and applied this to his own style despite its absence in a predominantly North American style industry. He later became known for popularizing the manga style despite its weak North American market.

Aircel successfully produced comics until late 1988 when the company merged with Malibu comics in exchange for support through their financial difficulties. Because of this and other changes including staff, shortly after the merger Aircel ceased publishing its house titles. It was around this time that it began to publish erotic or sex themed comics, most notably Blair’s Leather and Lace, and change the Aircel logo. In 1990, Men in Black, which later became the hugely successful movie. Finally, in 1991 Aircel broke even, and Blair formally handed the company over to Malibu before moving on to other projects. Aircel continued under Malibu until 1994 when Marvel bought it, after which it ceased publishing.

The Black Scorpion

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Cover by Peter Grau

The Black Scorpion was a black and white comic released in 1991 by Special Studios, a subsidiary of Diamond Press. Although the publisher was located in Brantford, the comic itself was created by American Ron Fortier as a noir style detective story.

After writing the Green Hornet for Now comics, Fortier and co-writer Dave Darrigo wanted to produce something with a similar style but with a more modern touch. The outcome was that Fortier created the main character, the Black Scorpion, who was an African American “publisher turned crime fighter” also known as Ben Wright, and Darrigo created his young sidekick Dart.

The scripts were usually produced by either creator, and under the pseudonym George Stryker. For each issue, the two would each produced a 16 page story with the intent to find different artists for each story.

The series, like many Canadian small press comics, had a limited print run and in this case, Darrigo wanted to finish the comic after only three issues. After Black Scorpion, many of the artists became quite successful in the comic book industry. You can click on their names to see their sites and more recent work.

Luckily, most of this information can be found on GCD, but I will list some of the basic information for ease of reading.

Issue #1 April 1991 (Cover by Peter Grau)

  • Knights of Justice: Steve Leblanc (Pencils and inks)
  • Double Take: Scott Dutton (Pencils); Jim Scott (Inks)

Issue #2 July 1991

  • A Game for Old Men: Chris Jones (Pencils and Inks)
  • Roar of the Lions: Brian B. Chin (Pencils and Inks)

Issue #3 October 1991 (Cover by Peter Grau)

  • Blackmailers Auction: Peter Grau (Pencils and Inks); Fred Fairfield (Letters)
  • The Ravenia Ripper Strikes Again!: Brian B. Chin (Pencils and Inks)
If you haven’t already, I do recommend checking out some of the artists’ other work. Scott Dutton had a great site and a fantastic hand and Steve Leblanc has a great web comics blog. Special Studios did publish a few other comics which I will look at at a later date. Finally, a thanks to Ron Fortier for providing me with information regarding the short history of Black Scorpion. A really well done comic with some truly great art.