Oh San Diego Comic-Con, how we love you and love/hate you. Two gazillion folks wandering the aisles at once. We should all be making Mooing sounds. And yet, there’s no better place to have an art release, especially by fan favorite Alex Ross. We had seen the images, but had to see them in person to report back to anyone “on the fence” or wanting to hear our opinion of how dramatically they presented in person.
As always, at SDCC 2017, we are double-focused. We get to see all the new releases, especially by Alex. We also scour the con for new artists or artists we want to work with more. We found a few potential future partners, so we’ll see how that develops, and will update you as we do.
Meanwhile, we made a direct march to the Alex Ross booth first thing on Wednesday night, accompanied by clients who wanted to see them with us. Sure enough, there were some gorgeous pieces released, like the Universal Monsters pieces, the Marvel shadows pieces. Did what we love sell the best? Were we spot-on with our prediction of which would be the hottest and best received?
In a word, YES! Surprising me not at all, the Universal Monsters series was the most popular. I knew the images would be a big hit, even though they aren’t comic-book derived. There’s something about seeing Alex Ross’s art in shades of grey, without his usual color palette, that really shows how well he uses shadow and light. You can see the influence great illustrators have had on him, like J.C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell, who were both geniuses with light.
There were only 15 sets of the series put aside as sets, and they of course sold out. We have several we have bought for our clients, so contact ASAP if you’re interested, or love all things monsters. The Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon are our favorites in terms of images, but everyone loves the Bride of Frankenstein!
We sold as many Marvel shadows series sets as we could get our hands on, and are still trying to see if anyone who had right of first refusal says no, so do let us know if you’re interested in them as well! We have the images individually if there’s a superhero you love more than the rest. We’ve had hundreds more hits on Iron Man, although we love Thor the best. They are $825 each unframed and rolled.
OMG BATMAN DETECTIVE #31 AND SCARS
Tucked into the interior of the booth was one of my two favorite new releases, the Detective #31 piece, inspired by an old comic book most of you fans will know inside and out. I was driven to read the old classic from seeing Alex’s new interpretation of the cover. I knew it would be gorgeous in person, and I brought several of my clients in to see it, and actually sold 3 more for the booth while I showed the piece to my own clients! My favorite colors, red and purple, are featured. What’s not to love?
(see below for the original and one of the first homages of Detective Comics #31)
The other piece I knew would be a huge hit is Scars, but as intense as the subject matter is, it’s still impressive as art. I see the symbolism and metaphor of outside scars vs. inside scars, as well as the power of Alex using black and white, but it was for Batman Black and White, a BIG DEAL book they did at DC that Batman fans always list as one of their favorites.
There are other releases, but those are the ones that struck us the most, and those are the ones that made the fans and collectors crazy in the best possible way.
Balancing our Cinema Siren / Women Rocking Hollywood panels with our work for ArtInsights is always a challenge at San Diego Comic-Con. Those of you who know us here, know our passion for changing the status quo for women in film, both in live action and animation. It is a natural extension of working with the art of film and Leslie being a film critic. We were thrilled, then, to be able to succeed in our panels (videos coming soon!!) and see some great new art that we can wholeheartedly approve and get behind.
We are always working on our next great new partnership, and we’ll let you know when we get there—we take things slowly now so we know we are in something supremely cool and future-bound!
For now, bask in the awesomeness of Alex Ross 🙂