STEPHEN ROMANO'S PROJECT 51
Hey there, Eibonites and Psycho fans . . .
‘Tis Stephen Romano here, half your team of fearless leaders at the Eibon Ranch, and it’s time for a big announcement. Can you guess what it is? Go on. Take a stab. We like stabby things at Eibon. We also like things that go BLOOD in the night. And things that go ARRRGHHHH! And URRRGGHHHHH! And PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!!! Um. But you probably already totally knew that, right? Okay, I digress . . .
The big announcement is . . .
It’s my BIRTHDAY SOON!!!
Yippee! HOORAY!!! Right?
Okay, calm down. Try to contain yourself. You’ll go into shock. Sheesh.
I’ll be fifty-one years-old on November 12, 2020, to be exact. And I’ve decided to make it fun for everyone. So we’re making a new book and we’re calling it:
PROJECT 51
Cool, huh? Stop gasping. You’ll totally run out of air and die. Sheesh.
All kidding aside, PROJECT 51 is unlike anything we’ve ever done at Eibon, and unlike anything I’ve ever attempted in my entire professional life. It’s a bit of a daredevil stunt actually, as much as it’s a book. Some of you have been really wondering what the hell this is all about and since we said it was coming in November, a few of you have even asked if that’s when the pre-order begins.
It’s not that kind of party. Not yet anyway. There WILL be a preorder—eventually. And you WILL get to buy a copy of PROJECT 51—eventually. But November 12, 2020 is the day I am actually going to write the book.
Huh? What?
Okay, dammit, here it is in plain English: I have set a 24 hour writing challenge for myself this year. On that day, I will write no less than FIFTY ONE SHORT STORIES—one for each year I have been alive.
FIFTY ONE SHORT STORIES IN 24 HOURS.
These will be prose stories dedicated exclusively to—and in many cases inspired by—our fans. These will be of usually no more than 1,000 words each, sometimes more, sometimes less. All of them will be pure Eibonite awesomeness, full of all the twisted piss and vinegar you’ve come to expect from us, and even more! I promise fucked up superheroes, slashers with marital problems, 80s horror throwback stuff, killer goons, mutating monsters, action heroes and screaming slashers and about a thousand other cool things that go ARRRRGGGGGGH in the night. Some of them will be deeply personal, others scathingly vapid. These stories will all be TOTALLY ORIGINAL and not based on any of our licensed properties, such as Lucio Fulci’s ZOMBIE or MANIAC. It will all come outta my twisted brain—and if any of you have been paying attention for the last four and a half years, THAT AIN’T A PRETTY PLACE. It’s gonna be a deep dive into The Old Man of Eibon Press, where you will find the darkest and most hilarious horrors.
And I am reaching out to ALL OF YOU for inspiration.
For the next month and a half, as we begin the COUNTDOWN TO 51, I will be calling on every Eibonite out there to come up with titles, concepts, names, situations, dirty jokes—anything and everything you think might make a good short story that I can tell fast. Pretty much any idea is fair game. It will all be considered. And just before November 12 hits, I will post here at our site the names of EACH STORY I WILL WRITE and what ideas of yours we are using! You’ll also get your names in the final published book, plus A FREE AUTOGRAPHED COPY, and the eternal adoration of every other Eibonite Psycho Fan out there!
Sound fun??? Feel like helping me write this thing???? Good, because I’m gonna need all the fuckin’ goddamn help I can get to WRITE FIFTY ONE GODDAMN FUCKIN’ SHORT STORIES IN 24 HOURS!!!
Oh, and also . . . the three people who’s story ideas or whatever make me smile the most will WIN SOME AMAZING PACKAGES OF FREE STUFF FROM EIBON PRESS!
And the one among those three I like the BEST will win the GRAND FUCKING PRIZE.
That’s four chances to win big!
Now . . . if you’ve ever entered and/or won a contest we’ve run, you know our prizes are nothing to sneeze at. You’ll get all kinds of coolness stuffed in your mailbox, like rare books, art prints, enamel pins and whatever else we can think to throw in there. And what is that GRAND PRIZE, you ask?
Not telling.
HAH! Okay, here’s what it is: The GRAND PRIZE will be the ORIGINAL ARTWORK I am personally commissioning for the cover of PROJECT 51 from Eibon star artist Pat Carbajal! Yep, you heard that right. I’m literally paying for the cover art out of my own pocket and I’m just gonna GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE to one of YOU GUYS for yelling out silly stuff! You can’t beat that with several sticks.
SO LET’S DO THIS THING, HUH??!!!!
Okay, now . . . some rules. READ THIS NEXT PART CAREFULLY.
Starting today, we’ll have threads going at Twitter and Facebook, where you can chime in with your ideas. We will be watching all those feeds carefully and the results will all be seen by me or given to me by the people who run our feeds when we’re not around. You can also write us emails or DM us at Twitter and Facebook, or you can contact me directly through my website, right here. You’re allowed to suggest anything you think might make a killer Eibon story—or really ANY STORY AT ALL—but we ask that you:
1. Don’t waste your time suggesting licensed property ideas. Even if we own something you want to see me do, like FRANK ZITO GETS A COLD SORE or whatever, this ain’t that kinda party and you’ll be automatically disqualified from the contest with any suggestion like that. It isn’t that I don’t WANT to do FRANK ZITO GETS A COLD SORE or whatever, it’s simply a legal issue. We have to pay other people royalty money if we use those characters—and we ain’t doing that because we’re cheap bastards.
2. Keep your suggestions simple and to the point. (See what I did there? Do that.)
3. Please, guys, be sincere. I literally won’t consider anything that sounds like you are mocking us or fucking around. Plus I’ll think you totally stink. It’s okay to be funny and suggest off-the-wall shit. I will literally consider ANY IDEA that's a REAL idea and, frankly, the stranger, the the weirder, the funnier, better . . . but remember, this is a REAL thing. I am REALLY doing it. I’m REALLY gonna totally spend my birthday writing fifty-one short stories, just for you guys. If you REALLY want to help, I’ll REALLY put your name in the book and REALLY give you free stuff. Really.
4. Whatever you come up with and I decide to use is ours to keep by the letter of the law, with no further obligation to you beyond a free copy of the final book and maybe a prize. So don’t give me anything you can’t stand losing forever. I will own the final copyright on all the material included in PROJECT 51, lock, stock and the other thing. That’s also a legal issue. We’d love to send you all royalty checks—but we’re also LAZY bastards and that ain’t ever gonna happen either. So if prestige and free stuff appeals to you, let’s do this thing. Otherwise, let’s not.
Got all that?
Okay, some other stuff:
I have set certain parameters for the preparation of this thing, within the 51 story slots. It breaks down like this:
20 stories will be well-prepared in advance by myself only, without any outside help. I will have collated ideas and characters for this first batch, and I may even do a bit of outlining.
The next wave of 10 stories will be completely invented on the day of writing, with no title or idea or help of any kind.
And the final 21 will be based on your suggestions, ideas, tiles, dirty jokes or whatever.
SO THAT’S 21 CHANCES TO BE IN THE BOOK AND 21 CHANCES TO WIN BIG!
I will actually begin the writing on Wednesday NOVEMBER 11 at 7pm and it will end at 7pm on November 12th, which is the next day. (Duhhh???) The idea is that I end my 50th year and begin my 51st year by writing this stuff. I may finish earlier or later . . . but I will not be allowed to go past midnight on the 12th or I will consider the “stunt” portion of the project a “failure.” We’ll still have a cool book in any event, however, and those who participate will still get their names and ideas in there and we will publish it and some lucky punks will win all the cool free crap. That never changes.
While I write from 7pm to 7pm, I will keep a VIDEO JOURNAL of the process, which will be posted in fun little pieces later . . . and I will personally be live-tweeting at the Eibon Press Twitter Feed each time a story is completed. The video blog thingies will be like this:
Cute, ain’t he? Sheesh . . .
I will share snippets of the writing as I go and post THREE of the stories in their entirety here at our website in an ongoing thread, which I will update as the day progresses.
That’s right, I’m only giving you SNEAK PEEKS as I write, for the most part. This ain’t Harlan Ellison-in-a-bookstore-window, folks. (Though maybe a close cousin.) To read ALL the stories, you’ll have to buy the book when we publish it, early next year. (Or get a free copy, if you participate!) But even though I’ll sorta be on the honor system here and you’ll pretty much have to take my word for it that I’m actually doing this thing . . . well, I promise the live tweeting WILL be highly amusing, as I race towards the finish line (and rapidly lose my sanity), and we promise the final, finished book will be well worth the wait, with interior illustrations and covers by Eibon star artist Pat Carbajal (ZOMBIE, THE BEYOND, BOTTOMFEEDER), all done up Eibon style with a sleeve and special extras and even a Psycho Fan Edition! It will be my first prose book released that way at Eibon. (We’ve published two other short story collections here, but they are Amazon-only direct market books and have never been released in limited editions at our website like our other stuff.) That’s where you’ll be able to read all my crazy thoughts about exactly WHY I decided to punish myself like this on my birthday in all-new forwards and afterwards, which I will write before, during and after the entire sordid affair.
SO.
INTERESTED IN BEING A PART OF EIBON PRESS HISTORY???
Well come on in and join us, kids!
It’s gonna be a crazy motherfucking time, and we want YOU to be right there with us! SO BE THERE ALREADY!!!
Rawk on, kids!
S