It was about three months ago and I was driving to the Mondo shop… nothing out of the ordinary. I got a phone call and missed it. Didn’t notice it until later in the day, but it was a number I didn’t recognize. Whoever it was left a voicemail, so I hit play. The message started off with, “Hey Justin. This is Favreau….” It was a surprise for sure and that was the beginning of several conversations about who Jon wanted on the series of posters you see below. We’ve had several director series where we work directly with the director, but this is the first where it was curated by someone other than Mitch, Rob and I. Thanks to Jon for being a really great guy to work with and I hope you all like the end result of all the months of planning and work. The artists did a great job on these!

Poster by Daniel Danger. 18″x24″ screen print. Hand numbered. Edition of 420. Printed by D&L Screen Printing. Click HERE to buy.

Poster by Tom Whalen. 24″ x 36″ screen print. Hand numbered. Edition of 190. Printed by D&L Screen Printing. Click HERE to buy.

Poster by Janee Meadows.18″x24″ screen print. Hand numbered. Edition of 170. Printed by D&L Screen Printing. Click HERE to buy.

-Justin

Anchor Bay reached out to us to do a poster for the new film by Xavier Gens called THE DIVIDE. After watching the film, the first person we thought about putting on the project was the amazing JOCK. This is the first time working with him and trust us, it won’t be the last. Check out the poster….

If you’re attending the special Comic Con screening tonight, you just might be going home with one of these…. okay…. you for sure will be. Everyone that attends will be getting one and definitely let us know how the screening goes tonight if you go!

-Justin

Mentioned it earlier on Twitter, but we’re going to have a booth for the first time ever at San Diego Comic Con. Booth #433 to be exact. Tell your friends. We found out a little over a week ago that this was happening. I’d be lying if I said that the last week wasn’t stressful getting orders put in and things shipped, but if you stop by the booth next week, I can almost guarantee you won’t be bummed. We’ve got lots of things lined up. Here is a vague list of what will be there.

ARCHIVAL POSTERS

We have a pretty extensive archive. We’ve been saving a small amount of everything back to do a big retrospective show and we decided that since this was SDCC, we’d break the seals on some bags and bring out some choice posters. I think you’ll like what we have to offer.

FREE STUFF

Comic Con wouldn’t be Comic Con without stickers and postcard and just general free stuff. We’ll have this kind of stuff and the sticker we’re giving out will kind of be an announcement in itself. It features one of our favorite artists drawing a character from the license we picked up earlier this year. One of my favorite movies and I’m excited to get working on it. You’ll be excited…. I hope.

NEW STUFF

This could get crazy. We won’t be having any advanced sales online or whatever, so this will all be sold at the booth. As of now, we will have two releases a day. One in the AM and one in the PM. We won’t be announcing anything beforehand and won’t be announcing times. It will all be random like our online stuff. Watch Twitter to find out when stuff goes on sale. Mixed in, we’ll have three artist signings. I’m pretty excited about the stuff we’re bringing. All new. All great by some of our biggest artists. Oh, we’ll also have a new shirt! I’m going to wear it like every day. Based off of one of my favorite 90′s logos.

I want to meet a lot of you. Me, Jessica, Rob Jones and Zack Carlson from the Alamo will be working, so come say hey. Booth #433 is where we’ll be. Come by and let’s talk about comics and look at all the dudes in Venture Bros. costumes. I want to be there now.

Can’t wait.

-Justin

Today, we release two prints with some of my favorite artists. The first, BOTTLE ROCKET by Rich Kelly. We had a special benefit show in Hillsboro, TX in the hopes of saving the hotel that BR was shot at. To do our part, we made this poster and we’re going to be giving 15% to help them fight getting closed! If you purchase this, not only will you be getting a great work by Kelly, you’ll be supporting a great cause.

The second is by Tom Whalen and is for the classic STAR TREK episode, LET THAT BE YOUR LAST BATTLEFIELD. This print can be flipped so framing it is up to you. Depends on who you side with! These are both on sale now!

Poster by Tom Whalen. 18″x24″ screen print. Hand numbered. Edition of 215. Printed by D&L Screen Printing. Click HERE to buy.

Poster by Rich Kelly. 18″x24″ screen print. Hand numbered. Edition of 225. Printed by D&L Screen Printing. Click HERE to buy.

-Justin

I love this. I love, love, love Mondo Video. One of my favorite things in the world is getting the shipment of VHS in the mail. Every time I open the box I quietly say to myself, “This shouldn’t be happening.” This time, we’re releasing things and I was especially excited about getting this shipment in as I had heard through the grapevine that this thing was going to be “HUGE.” I just thought they meant that it was going to be “HUGE” as in people will like the movie, but no…. this thing is LITERALLY HUGE.

The clamshell on top is our SLEDGEHAMMER VHS. The one on bottom is THINGS. This is not a camera trick. This thing is MASSIVE. And awesome. To me, in the VHS world, the bigger the box, the better.

See what I mean, it’s a giant. Let’s now take a look at the cover….

A lot of people have been asking why we aren’t doing original covers. Our answer, we just can’t compete with these. NOTHING we could do now could touch this or SLEDGEHAMMER. These are such products of their time that if we did anything now, it would feel too modern and not fit in with what we’re trying to do. That being said, I LOVE THIS COVER. In a very weird way, it feels like my house. Random monsters and taxidermy all over the place…. so, just another reason why I’m into it. Here’s a shot of the back….

There ya go. Our second MONDO VIDEO release. It’s on sale now HERE, so take a look and grab one while you can!

-J

I’ve written and re-written this blog post so many times it’s ridiculous, but it’s only because I’m REALLY excited about these announcements and I keep rambling. So, I’ll do it like this….

1. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka THE OSCARS) contacted us a few months back. They asked if they could start archiving everything we do. We freaked out and said yes. This is unreal. They have never done this with anyone outside of the studio system so it is an incredible honor. Here is the official press release….

ACADEMY LIBRARY AND ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE
TO ARCHIVE ART MOVIE POSTERS FROM MONDO

Beverly Hills, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library is partnering with the Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse theater chain to archive the company’s growing collection of original film posters designed by contemporary graphic artists. The first group of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Mondo posters arriving at the Herrick will include the latest print, a poster for the classic horror film “Frankenstein” (1931), created by Drew Struzan.

The Alamo Drafthouse began producing limited-edition silkscreen posters in 2003. Mondo, the company’s art boutique, now produces more than 120 posters annually, and through it prominent artists such as Martin Ansin, Shepard Fairey, Olly Moss, Tyler Stout and Ken Taylor are commissioned to create new art for classic films, as well as alternative posters for contemporary movies such as “Inglourious Basterds,” “True Grit” and “Thor.”

“We are always seeking out the unusual, and the Mondo collection certainly fits the bill,” said the Academy’s graphic arts librarian, Anne Coco. “We are looking forward to working with the Alamo Drafthouse to ensure that its contribution to the art of movie posters will be around for future generations to appreciate.”

This ongoing gift from the Alamo Drafthouse will be housed along with the Herrick’s existing collection of more than 38,000 movie posters. The posters in the library’s collection are stored in climate-controlled vaults, and are scanned and entered into the library’s online catalog, where they can be viewed by the public.

“We’re extremely grateful to the Academy for its interest in archiving Mondo’s poster collection,” said Mondo Creative Director Justin Ishmael. “We’re fans of movie art, first and foremost, and to have our artists’ work archived alongside some of the classics of movie poster art is an incredible honor.”

The Margaret Herrick Library poster collection includes a wide range of works created by noted graphic artists, such as the Stenberg brothers’ constructivist poster for “Man with a Movie Camera” and Wiktor Gorka’s arresting poster for the Polish release of “Cabaret.” The library also holds all of the film posters designed by Saul Bass, including his groundbreaking key art for “The Man with the Golden Arm.”

Crazy, right?! So, if you read through that entire thing, you probably saw a name in there that hasn’t been associated with us before. DREW STRUZAN. I’ve kinda teased in the past about this by tweeting his business card and all of that, but it’s real. We’re doing a poster with him. Here it is….

2. Last year at San Diego Comic Con, I bought a book with a ton of Drew’s artwork and him talking about each piece. This book, to be exact. I read the entire thing the night I got it and one of the big things that he talked about was that most of the movies he wanted to do posters for came out before he was born and he would love to take a shot at them. So, I ended up getting in touch with him and letting him know that we could make that happen. A few months later, Kevin Tong and I went to his house and brought him some posters to show what we could do and he was in. Drew has never had a screenprinted poster done before and he was interested to see what we could do, so here we are. We’re working with Drew Struzan. The production on this thing is going to be OUTRAGEOUS, so when we get closer to releasing, I’ll have more news and pics.

3. With the announcement of the Academy wanting to archive our work, we decided that it was time to build a site showing off everything we’ve done. So, here it is…. WWW.MONDOARCHIVE.COM

There has never been a complete record of everything we’ve done, but this is it. Let me say this now….this is not complete. In the early days, the internet didn’t cover our poster releases, so there are some “lost” Mondo posters out there and we’re still unearthing them. It will be fun to get those up so always check back because there will be more added.

That’s it! Exciting, exciting stuff and the week is just beginning. Can you believe that we’ll actually have more news and releases this week, too?

-Justin

Last night, we gave our fellow Austinites first crack at our new poster from Jeff Proctor, but now it’s available for everyone! On sale now!

Poster by Jeff Proctor. 24″x36″ screen print. Hand numbered. Edition of 345. Printed by D&L Screen Printing. Click HERE to buy.