WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Pioneering gay producer Falcon Studios and its new literary division, FalconINK, hosted a launch event at West Hollywood’s Book Soup on Saturday afternoon. (photo gallery)
The gathering celebrated the roll out in July of the FalconINK imprint, headed up by Ben Rush, Falcon | NakedSword’s chief creative marketing officer and co-chief content officer. He spoke to the crowd seated amongst the bookstore’s stacks of movie industry-related novels, histories and biographies.
“We have spent 55+ years telling stories visually, but fantasy doesn’t begin or end with what you can show on a screen,” Rush wrote to AVN prior to Saturday’s event. “Literature gives us a completely different wall to paint on. We can get inside a character’s head, build anticipation over hundreds of pages, explore romance and emotional intimacy, and let readers create the imagery in their heads. In some ways, that can be even more intimate than we can be on film.
“I don’t necessarily think of books as ‘non-visual’—I think of them as imaginative. The reader becomes the director and the casting director. If you already know Derek Kage or Eddie Burke, for example, hearing them narrate an audiobook adds another dimension. You have the voices and the personas, but your imagination gets to do everything else,” Rush mused further.
FalconINK’s debut novellas are Hard Ball authored by Riley Parks, and Wild Game: Open Season by Parks and Rush. Both are available in print, e-book and audio book formats. The label will feature “erotic male/male romance stories in all major formats, with original novellas and stories inspired by the universe of Falcon | NakedSword films.”
Multiple GayVN-awarded actor Kage told AVN that his first experiences with sexual fantasy involved books. “When I was younger, my first introduction to not only erotica and porn, but also to BDSM, was through a book. It was through Anne Rice's The Sleeping Beauty trilogy. I picked that up at 18,” Kage said with a wink. “When I started reading it, I got so excited, my imagination went wild. So, I understand the audiobooks as well as erotica, the world of erotica, because that was where I really kind of got a start with my sexual awakening.”
Kage, who has a deep, commanding voice, provides the narration for the audiobook version of Wild Game: Open Season, while Burke voices the audio edition of Hard Ball. Both were in attendance, as well as popular performers River North, Beau Butler and cowboy-hatted Ryan Orion.
Versatile adult actor Tony Genius was there to support FalconINK and said, “You know, it's almost like normalizing sex workers in the form of acting in a regular world. You don't only see us doing adult stuff—You also see us doing books and vertical dramas and stuff like that, where there might not be sex in it, but you're seeing your favorite actors still in those roles and in those characters. It's a really good opportunity to just show this industry is expanding more so into a normalcy of the acting world.”
There to support FalconINK, Genius added that he also has some crossover film projects he’s focused on, expanding on adult themes. “A new project that I'm working on right now—It's called ‘Flowers for the Day.’ I’m executive-producer and it’s a ‘safer work’ style vertical drama. It's about a guy who is a struggling actor who gets into sex work to help his ends meet. We're looking to pitch it to Apple, Amazon Prime. We're going to really utilize those avenues to start to push the not-safer-work blurred lines and bring it into the ‘safer work’ environment.”
Industry publicist Erika Icon came in support of her client Kage, as did ginger-haired adult actress Sophia Locke, who is Kage’s friend and occasional scene partner. She pointed out that Falcon’s expansion into publication could tap an audience that might not typically seek out gay streaming content or DVDs—women. Romance literature, like “boy love” manga novels popular in Japan, feature stories with gay characters written primarily for a female audience.
“It's so huge among female readers, too,” Locke speculated. “If you think about the fan base for shows like (gay romance/sports drama) Heated Rivalry, which is this is kind of on the backs of—you know, they love gay stories. I think a lot of women are turned on by that. I think they can reach an audience that doesn't usually purchase in the porn market as much. So, I think this is a great idea to broaden towards obviously gay consumers, and people who want to read that—but also women.”
“M/M romance has moved into a much larger cultural conversation. There’s a huge readership for queer romance and erotic fiction, including an audience of women that Falcon | NakedSword historically hasn’t directly created content for. FalconINK gives us an opportunity to welcome that audience while still creating something authentic for the gay men who have known our company for decades,” Rush commented also.
“Well, obviously hardcore gay porn is our bread-and-butter and it's what we do the best and I think better than anybody,” NakedSword owner Tim Valenti told AVN. “But I've always looked at us as a multimedia company. We love creative ideas. We go into the mainstream all the time. We've produced, you know, very popular indie gay film, I Want Your Love. That was incredibly popular.
“We do micro-dramas and clothing lines, talk shows and podcasts,” he added. “And so half of these books are novellas or concepts are original, and a lot of others are going to be inspired by narrative films that we've created, like prequels. For example, Open Season is how you got to Wild Game, which was our award-winning GayVN best feature of the year last year.”
Also on hand, well-known LGBTQ activist Sister Roma. In the age of impending AI technology, Roma felt more fans seem to be interested in analog formats; hard copy products that they can hold in their hands and isn’t on a hard drive, which they can collect.
“Listen I read every single one of the Hardy Boys series when I was growing up,” Roma told AVN. “I read every single Little House on the Prairie series book. Then I started to turn to more adult reading. I have been a reader my entire life, including male erotic fiction. I think it's that we are going to the hottest kind of porn that there can possibly be.
“If you're honest, sex really is always in your head, so, when you're reading it looks exactly the way you want it to look and it's perfect every time,” Roma said.
Hard Ball by Riley Parks (on the Falcon Books line), and Wild Game: Open Season by Parks and Rush (on the NakedSword Books banner) are available at major retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Photography by Chad Salvador
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