At the 12:01 a.m. IMAX premiere screening of Marvel’s Iron Man 3, on May 3, 2013, IMAX will be giving away limited edition Mondo Iron Man 3 prints.  The artwork, created by Detective Comics and Green Arrow: Year One comic book artist Jock, is a collaboration between Marvel Studios, IMAX, and Mondo, the Austin, Texas-based limited edition poster company.  According to Walt Disney Studios, owner of the Marvel properties, the Iron Man 3 print will be the last entry in the IMAX 12:01 poster series–a series that began in 2012 with alternate poster concepts to promote the films.  No idea what a Mondo poster is?  They are only released in limited editions and tend to sell out fast, and are created by a myriad of artists.  Here is the Iron Man 3 poster to be given away in this last IMAX 12:01 giveaway:

Prior IMAX 12:01 posters have been created for Oz: The Great and Powerful, The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall, Real Steel, John Carter of Mars, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, The Amazing Spider-man, The Avengers, Frankenweenie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and Prometheus.  One of the best of these fantasy/sci-fi throwback designs was created for Oblivion:

Not coincidentally, this great poster was also a collaboration with Mondo artists.  The most appealing of the Mondo works have a silk-screen Art Deco look, much like the classic retro-art series of National Parks posters released in the 1990s, re-colored from black and white negatives of the original art from the 1930s and 1940s, like this great work:

If you want to learn more about the origins behind Mondo and their ties to Alamo Drafthouse gig posters, check out this interview with Jessica Olsen, Mondo’s chief operating officer.  You can find a whole gallery of their posters here.  Many of these take a look at old films, like They Live, Rear Window, Jaws, The Dirty Dozen, Bullitt, Lifeforce, Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, and various Star Trek films.  One of our favorite comic book artists, David Petersen, who is writer and illustrator of the Mouse Guard series, was recently commissioned to prepare a Mondo limited edition poster for the Disney movie Brave.  It’s a superb work:

Check out this link to David’s blog for the details of how he created the art for the Brave poster.

IMAX 12:01 posters, particularly the Mondo editions, in addition to being free for initial collectors, have also been relatively inexpensive to pick up on eBay.  If you are interested in mass-produced but limited print collecting, Mondo posters and the now complete set of IMAX 12:01 posters may be something you want to look at.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com