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The Pulp That Inspired Bulletstorm
Staff members at Bulletstorm developer People Can Fly are an odd lot. The game's creative director, Adrian Chmielarz, sports the kind of gonzo personality you would expect from the leader of a studio that is behind a game that stars a drunken space pirate. He shared some of the inspirations behind Bulletstorm with us, and flipping through them is a good way to get a sense of the kind of insane adventure Chmielarz wants to take players on.
Felix Vega's Juan Buscamares
"The first part of this comic was published in English in Heavy Metal magazine (January 1998). The story itself was less important to me than the visuals. I was amazed by the color palette, how well yellows/oranges and blues were beautifully working together," Chmielarz explains. "Also, there's a lot of striking imagery there, very imaginative and just plain interesting like shipwrecks in the middle of the desert (that was long before the Sahara movie) or buses turned into aircrafts. Everything you see in the comic you've seen somewhere else, it's just that the context is completely different and these surprise visual discoveries had a very powerful effect on me."
Chmielarz happily provided a link to Vega's blog as well, but let's just say that it's a bit too, ahem, raw to link to directly.
Indiana Jones
"Sometimes people are not sure if they like pulp or not, but I don't know anybody who doesn't like Indiana -- and that's 100% pure pulp. Nazis, beautiful women, mysterious temples, ghosts! But that's not the most important thing for me. What I care about is the fact that it's not just a roller coaster ride, the movies do feature real character arcs. Some folks say the second Indiana is the worst one, and I think it's because you don't have any character arc there. In Raiders, it's all about personal growth (Indy's transformation from an a--hole to someone who ends up giving away the Ark in order to save a life), third one is about priorities ("Let it go, Indiana!") and the second one...I don't know what's it about. That confirmed my suspicion that there are no excuses for the lack of a great story and the character arc even if what you do is 'just a shooter.'"
Men's Magazine Covers, 1920-1970
"There are many books that collect these covers -- from It's a Man's World to The Classic Era of American Pulp Magazines -- and this is just incredible stuff. They don't make them like that anymore. Nowadays most books feature the author's name and the book's title. That's it. And that's just f---ing lame. These painted pulp covers are not only great art (well, most of the time), but are also clever mini-stories that ignite your imagination."
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