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The World's First New Pulp Movie

Published Sun, 11 Jun 2017 08:15:36 -0500

By Erik Franklin

It all started out of curiosity, frustration, and boredom.

I was fresh out of film school eager to make my mark on the cinematic world. My lifelong friend and business partner, Daniel J. Husser, and I decided to go for broke and make our own feature length movie. Looking back, I realize we should have gone for something simpler. Maybe a small thriller, a comedy or even a martial arts movie. Something that we could do with some actor friends that would not be too complicated…

Nope. Not us. We decided to make a dinosaur apocalypse film entitled Revenge of the Lost.

That film is now in distribution and should be coming out VOD in select territories very soon. The one thing we never considered in making a sci-fi epic was that the CGI and computer effects would require render time….

…Lots and lots of render time.

Some shots would literally take days (we were using two older computers for over 600 visual effects shots). Patience is not one of my virtues, and I started searching for something… another creative pursuit that would help advance my career while the computer was rendering. I always enjoyed writing, so I thought to try my hand at short stories/novels.

However, I did not want to write anything too typical, and was looking for an approach to literature that would be more interesting to me. Then I started researching the old pulp heroes like The Shadow, The Spider, Doc Savage, etc… and I thought to do something like that myself. It turns out that I was not unique in this idea. There were many people writing for these terrific older characters under the banner of New Pulp. Many of the public domain characters were featured, but there were many new characters looking to fight crime. After looking at a few companies, I happened to like Airship 27 Productions the best. Mustering up the courage, I sent the managing editor, Ron Fortier, an introduction letter and resume (which had nothing but film work on it).

To his credit, Ron decided to take a gamble and test me out on a Black Bat story. Needless to say I leapt at the chance and wrote my heart out, trying to pen the ultimate tale for that hero. I am not sure that I did, but Ron was impressed, and I became a staff writer for Airship 27! I kept writing and writing, turning out all kinds of stories while doing film work. Before my first book came out (Ghost Boy Vol. 2 if you are interested), I decided to see exactly what an Airship 27 book looked like, so I purchased a copy of Brother Bones: The Undead Avenger. He seemed to have a loyal fanbase, so I figured that there must be something to the skull-masked avenger.

Then my life took a dramatic turn. After suffering internally for a while, not knowing what the problem was, it turns out that I had Crohns disease, and it had gone misdiagnosed for at least five years. During those first few months of recovery, I was unable to work and could barely make it out of the house. In short, since I always need something to do… I was miserable. Still, the recovery gave me the opportunity to start reading voraciously. One of the books I devoured was Brother Bones.

It was the perfect antidote to my depression! Exciting escapism was abound in every page, and I enjoyed reading it immensely. Daniel came over to work one day and spotted the book lying around. He was the first to say "You know, this could make a great movie…"

So in secret, while we were still wrapping up our first film, we shot a test-trailer for Brother Bones and sent it to Ron, anxious to hear his reply. He was overwhelmed and delighted, and gave us his blessing! From there I wrote the script (based on the first two stories in the anthology) and have kept Ron Fortier heavily involved throughout the pre-production process.

In the blink of an eye, a year has passed! Having assembled a cast and crew that have delighted both Ron Fortier and myself, we are seeking funds to make cinema history. In short, we are endeavoring to make the first New Pulp movie ever!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/333395674/brother-bones-the-undead-avenger

Now, Bleeding Cool fans, we are throwing in a special incentive JUST for you. If you donate $100.00 or more to the campaign, you will unlock EXCLUSIVE rewards including unseen artwork and audio books! All you have to do is enter the words: BonelloBros27 in the message part of your donation.

If you can talk enough friends and family into donating, and we reach $30,000.00 in two weeks, then all the backers will get the FIRST GLIMPSE of our lead actor, David Stoker, donning the Brother Bones mask!

Yes, this is a passion project that I have longed to do since I was in the hospital. I do not want to tug on the heartstrings, but it is the truth. Donate today and help a dark, pulpy dream come true.

The production company's Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/fhentertainmentllc/

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