There was a record number of entries for The Incredible Suit's competition to win a copy of the quite literally large and heavy book The Art Of Drew Struzan. Something tells me I should have got Titan Books to post it to the winner rather than fork out for the extortionate postage myself. You can be sure it's no "Large Letter" as well, this mother is a full-on "Packet".
The correct answer was, obviously, that this is my favourite Struzan poster:
...and, believe it or not, it doesn't actually feature in the book. What up with that?
Anyway, as it's a special occasion I thought I'd get a special guest to pick the winner, so I asked The A-Team star Liam Neeson to help. And guess what?
So thanks to Liam and congratulations (insert winner's name), I am literally on my way to the post office now. If I fall off my bike because the book is so heavy it's your fault.
Having shamelessly attempted to get you to buy me a copy of The Art Of Drew Struzan in this post, I'm happy to say that you can put the money you've saved up towards something else because one plopped through my letterbox the other day, which is to say that a card saying "We failed to deliver a parcel ten times bigger than your letterbox" plopped through my letterbox and I had to go all the way to the depot to collect it but it was a nice day and it got me out of the house so it was all OK.
Anyone who's ever bemoaned the current state of movie poster shitness is legally required to get hold of this book as soon as possible and wallow in glorious, mostly '80s airbrushery. Not only does it include sketches and abandoned ideas for some of the most iconic posters, like, ever, but many of them I've never even seen before, and I thought I'd seen every piece of Back To The Future and Indiana Jones concept art in existence.
It's also a cracking read - Struzan reveals how all the men in his posters are - from the neck down - paintings of photographs of himself posing; he shows how Mary Steenburgen's place in the Back To The Future Part III poster was once occupied by a horse, and vents his frustration at being replaced by idiots with Macs, showing off the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets poster he was working on before he was unceremoniously dumped from the franchise. It makes you weep to think of what he could have done with the rest of the series.
So if that's got you dribbling gloopy saliva from your sloppy chops to the point where you'd do almost anything for a copy of this book, then I've got news of the greatest kind. Thanks to the lovely smashers at Titan Books, The Incredible Suit has one pristine copy of The Art Of Drew Struzan to give away to the winner of another...
To gain entry to the Arena, just answer this question:
Which of Drew Struzan's film posters
is The Incredible Suit's favourite?
All correct entrants will face a battle to the death, to be filmed in ultra-low definition 2D and broadcast on this very blog via the miracle of Your Tubes. Email your answer to me here before midnight on Friday and I'll announce the winner at the weekend.
I suppose I could point out that the answer can be found somewhere on The Incredible Suit, but that might make it too easy.
Some very nice people have made a documentary about movie-poster-making-chap Drew Struzan, some of whose work can be seen in this fawning post I wrote yonks ago. Nobody's picked it up for distribution yet so it's going to be ages before we see it, but when we do it will make sweet airbrushed love to your eyeballs.
Don't believe me? Don't just take my word for it. TAKE STEVE GUTTENBERG'S.
In unrelated news, it's my birthday in November.
This book is released on September 24th and is just £16.24 at Amazon. Just saying.
Welcome to the first in a comically occasional series of posts about The Incredible Suit’s Movie Heroes. I’m hiring out that big room from the end of Star Wars and calling forward several legends to receive a blog-shaped medal from me as a thank you for being really quite ace. I have yet to decide whether or not to dress as Princess Leia.
The Incredible Suit’s Movie Heroes aren’t going to be the usual suspects. Much as I think Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Buster Keaton, Stanley Kubrick, Christopher Nolan, Harrison Ford, James Stewart, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, John Williams and so on are truly outstanding individuals in their respective fields, there have been mountains of keyboards worn out writing about them. I’m concentrating on less obvious people who’ve had a significant impact on my film-watching over the years; people whose talents are unique and whose work has been carefully and delicately fashioned so as to fit perfectly into that peculiar-shaped hole marked ‘things what I love’.
So without further ado, because god knows there’s been enough ado so far already, here’s my first Movie Hero: Drew Struzan, illustrator of some of the finest movie posters ever to seductively stroke your eyeballs while gripping your heart and shouting “This film is going to be bloody marvellous, just look at the poster!”, even though sometimes that was a lie (I’m looking at you, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).
Mr Struzan’s work speaks for itself, so I’m going to shut the chuff up and let you pop a bib on and drool over some classic examples in peace. In theory, clicking on each picture should embigulate it so you can appreciate it in all its airbrushed glory, but I don't know if it works like that, I'm a novice with this new interweb thing.
But this is my absolute favourite of Drew Struzan's work, from Revenge Of The Jedi, before it had its balls lightsabred off and renamed Return Of The Jedi.
