It has finally been announced:
Acclaimed authors Victor Gischler (Gun Monkeys, the forthcoming The Deputy) and Anthony Neil Smith (Yellow Medicine and the forthcoming Hogdoggin’) have written Pulp Boy, the screenplay based on the life of legendary pulp writer Emerson Lasalle.

Lasalle’s career covered the realms of horror, Western, Science Fiction and even the crime genre, and include such works as Vixen Shamus, Guns of Old Mars, Sheriff Dracula and Whorebots of Planet Vegas.

Emerson Lasalle’s life was almost as interesting as his writings. Early in his life, he served in the French Foreign Legion. It was while serving that he lost a hand in a confrontation with an Arab. His choice to serve came shorly after his parents died in a blimb accident.

Mr. Lasalle had a reknowned love for alcohol. It was while under the influence of booze that, in the mid 70s, he sucker punched Theodore Geisel. Geisel was better known as Dr. Seuss.

Even past the one hundred year marker, he was still able to drink Neil and Victor under the table. That is a feat rarely accomplished by folks much younger.

It is quite possible that the booze played a role in his death, but there seems to be some conflicting reports on exactly how said death came. Some say he picked a fight with a bear, others suggest he passed during an alchohol induced sleep and some even think it was alcohol that promoted him to pick a fight with a bear.

After his passing, comments came in from all over the publishing world, including Bill Crider and Sean Doolittle. Any writer that can gain the respect of such talented writers is a special one indeed.

Some of you may know that Lasalle’s work influenced Victor a fair amount and was a major inspiration for GO-GO GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE.

Victor got to know Mr. Emerson is his last few and felt compelled to tell his story. The relationship started out rocky, but Victor and Emerson became friends.

Working with Emerson was apparently quite the experience. “I think he was just inventing most of the shit he told us,” Neil said “I’m pretty sure he told five conflicting versions of the same story. In fact, near the end I just started making up my own stuff and reading it back to him, and he couldn’t tell the difference. As long as we were buying the booze, he’d hang around and put up with us.”

But Neil is thankful for the experience and said that Lasalle gave him great insight into not just writing, but the film world as well. Dr. Smith recently shared some of that advice on his blog.

Producer Jake Dickey shares some of his memories of Lasalle’s work “Emmerson LaSalle was an icon. He may not have ever been a New York Times best-selling author, but he was quite popular, particularly in many non-english speaking countries. I remember reading his 1972 paperback Crimson Twilight: The Martian Missile Crisis when I was a teenager, and being really touched by his imagination and idyllic whimsy. Victor Gischler was able to send me some great information that he had collected concerning LaSalle while working with him closely durring his last few years. One of his most quoted maxims, “Technology is ruining science fiction!” sums up his attitude quite well. He always stood by his mantra that literature is about people, not machines. He often said that he didn’t get into science fiction to write about stuff we already have. He wanted to write about stuff nobody’s ever seen, and that nobody ever will see. Though that may have sometimes involved lobster people or armies of invisible naked alien battle-android babes, he wanted to create dreamers, not worriers.

But Dickey is excited not just about the project, but also at the chance to work with Smith and Gischler: “I am very excited, and honored, to be working with such talented storytellers. They have done an excellent job of bringing together various pieces of LaSalle’s life and presenting them in a way that will really appeal to a mass audience, even for those who are not familiar with LaSalle or his published works.”

Victor is equally pleased with working with Dickey: Jake Dickey is a young, new producer, but after exchanging ideas with him, I feel totally confident he “gets” what Neil and I are doing in the screenplay. I’m a huge supporter of independent film, and I’m excited to see what happens.”Neil went one step further: “Dickey’s enthusiasm just hooked us. The proposal he wrote–low budget, using RED, no stars–showed he had balls. Giant brass ones. We’re rooting for him to knock it out of the park.”

I will bring more news as it happens on this exciting project.