POSTERS part 4

JUSTICE LEAGUE POSTERS
Early in Alex Ross' career, around the time when he was still doing Terminator: The Burning Earth, he wanted to get his foot on the door of the major comic book publishers (DC and Marvel) so he sent this piece to the editors at DC Comics to see if they liked it.For this image he used the Queen II album cover as a template, as you can see the lighting is almost identical and Batman's chin looks exactly like Freddy Mercury's. The DC editors didn't like his Superman (too retro) so they canned this poster idea but did hire Alex for the Superman: Doomsday and Beyond book cover.

Eventually Alex was given the chance to paint the JLA poster he was pursuing, sadly, the editors made him paint the JLA they wanted, that meant, the team as it stood in 1994, so against his will, he had to include guys like Steel, Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern, Catwoman and the long-haired versions of Superman AND Aquaman. As you can tell, his lack of effort is visible there are too many shadows and there isn't much detail in the characters. overall, the work looks a bit sloppy. This is probably Alex's least favorite painting. Regardless of its shortcomings, this poster is rather hard to find.
With the success of Kingdom Come, Alex was able to take control of what he did or didn't do, so he did the lithograph below, as retro as he wanted and what could be more retro than the original 1940's heroes, with their original costumes and all. This litho is extremely gorgeous as well as hard to find and if you can find one, expect to pay around US$3000.
With the success of his and Paul Dini's series of oversized books. This poster was released to promote the last two of these books which focused on the JLA, Secret Origins and Liberty and Justice. I really enjoyed this poster because it looks great wether you hang it horizontally or vertically. This one is a little hard to find yet isn't too expensive.
This latest entry into the JLA posters was used to promote the 12-issue maxi-series JUSTICE it's a massive vision in gold with all the heroes almost leaping out of the page. This is my favorite JLA poster and it's featured prominently in the Mythology artbook.

POSTERS: OSCARS EDITION

I have to be honest, I love the Academy Awards, I haven't missed one of the ceremonies since I was 10 years old (I'm 30, now) so imagine my excitement when, in 2002, Alex Ross was in charge of painting the official Oscar poster.

And as you can see the result (right) is breathtaking, the Oscar statue is put in a dramatic lighting and perspective to look like, what else, a super-hero. This is the pièce de résistance of my poster collection.

Since the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards were announced today, I thought it was fitting to blog about this poster, which was offered for a limited time that year and is rarely seen on eBay nowadays. I'm proud to have one of these posters IN MY COLLECTION and, of course, hanging on my wall because it's a combination of 2 of my loves, movies and Alex Ross' art.

AND as a bonus, I recently discovered among some old VHS tapes this mini news piece, the E! network did about this poster, enjoy!

POSTERS part 3

The Uncle Sam mini series was a small one published by DC Comics' Vertigo line and it's aimed at adults. I've already commented about this book here, so let's concentrate on the marketing for this story. There were 2 posters, the promotional one (right) and a litograph (left). As you can see, both have the same theme of Uncle Sam as a beggar. These are nice posters , although I feel like the perspective and the faces are too similar in both of them, only flipped. These posters are NOT IN MY COLLECTION because they're so hard to find, I have yet to see one on eBay.

POSTERS part 2

The first poster that came out for this series was a promotional one that featured new art by Alex. It was used for advertising purposes only so it came folded, NOT rolled, which as you know, tends to leave creases, so handle with care. This poster features little black and white mugshots of the most important players in Kingdom Come: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Shazam and on the background, The Spectre's cloack. I like this poster because it doesn't suggest comic books at all, it looks like a Rock & Roll band's CD cover, as a matter of fact, Alex got inspiration from an album by the band YES. The Kingdom Come captions on this poster (not shown) are its only drawback they are a hideous light purple color which messes up the whole color composition. I've had this poster IN MY COLLECTION for quite some time and it looks great on my wall.

This poster which came next does feature the superheroes in all their glory coming from the sky like gods coming from Olympus. I really enjoy the Michael Bay-esque sunset/sunrise behind them which gives everything a soft orange tone. As you can see this is a reinterpretation of one of the panels in KC that sports a bright blue sky instead. This is a gorgeous image, worthy of display. If you have one consider yourself lucky. Sadly, This poster is NOT IN MY COLLECTION, yet.

There was a third poster which featured the art from issues 1 to 3 of KC one stacked above the other, this images have been used ad nauseam in trading cards and t-shirts so it's not worth mentioning it any further.

What IS worth mentioning is the image below, this poster reprinted the cover of the trade paperback edition of Kingdom Come, which in its original state isn't displayed well enough, but as a poster the image of the battle just ROCKS!. This is a poster that I want to include IN MY COLLECTION, yet it's harder to find than the 2 I mentioned above, which is strange for a non-original image.

POSTERS part 1

Let's talk posters. Alex's art looks glorious the bigger it gets, so for these series of posts, we're going to deal with such items as, prints and lithographs. We have 2 kinds of posters:
A. The ones that were originally posters and were later transformed into covers, t-shirts and such; and,
B. The covers or panels that were later transformed into posters due to their awesomeness.
I'll concentrate on the first category with a few notable mentions in the second category, where needed.
This is a perfect example of a type B poster, this was originally the art for the cover of the Graphitti Designs HC edition, this was a foldout cover but it was still small. This poster is 5 ft.(153 cm) long and 2 ft. (61 cm) high so you can really appreciate the coolness of it. I mean, come on! even Morbius, the vampire and Nighthawk are in there, if those obscure Marvel characters aren't worth your money, I don't know what is. Besides the color composition rocks! the green-colored characters are at the bottom, the red-orange ones in the middle and the blue-silver ones on top; it's a complete spectrum of colors and characters meshed together. Sadly, I have yet to include this poster IN MY COLLECTION.

THE MOST EXPENSIVE ALEX ROSS COMIC EVER!

Our friend Marcus Ho from Singapore alerted me of the existence (or soon to be existence), of this variant cover to Avengers/Invaders issue #1 at the Dynamic Forces website. It's remarked by Alex Ross and it costs, get ready for it, US$2999 making it the single most expensive comic book by Alex if not by anyone, EVER! (you're free to correct me if I'm wrong). I don't know how limited this item is but I'll keep you posted.

Don't believe me click here and check it out for yourselves!

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MY ESSAY ABOUT COLLECTING ALEX ROSS' ART

This essay originally appeared in spanish at the CLUB BATMAN website/blog. Wanna read it in Spanish? Click here.

Este ensayo apareció publicado originalmente en español en el blog/sitio web del CLUB BATMAN. Léelo en español haciendo click aquí.


The first time I ever saw Alex Ross’ art was on the Earth X sketchbook published by Wizard magazine. I was just coming back to comics after not collecting them since childhood when Spider-Man was fighting an afro-wearing villain called The Hypno-Hustler at a place called Disco Inferno. What attracted me about the sketchbook wasn’t only the description of this “alternate future’s” super heroes, which showed how much comics have evolved, but the way the artist achieved such levels of detail in his pencils. From the threads on the rope which tied a tattered, old flag to Captain America’s body to Daredevil’s shiny leather suit, everything done with just a pencil.
From that moment on, I was fascinated by this hyper-realistic art style so I decided to collect Earth X thus learning a great deal about the Marvel Universe and I just couldn’t believe how amazing it was the way the covers formed a giant mural-like image which could only come out from the mind of a genius, a wizard whose magic was exercised with a pencil, brushes and watercolors. That’s when my collection began and when I decided to look for more of Alex Ross’ art.

Then I found Marvels, the alpha to Earth X’s omega and saw the history of the Marvel universe unfold before my eyes with the Human Torch’s flames which seem to burn right through the page, to looking at myself reflected on the Silver Surfer’s chromed body or crying alongside Phil Sheldon, the main character of this story, for the tragic death of the beautiful Gwen Stacy. That’s where Alex Ross and writer Kurt Busiek showed me the swift way in which comics matured and lost their innocence.



But nothing could have prepared me for the visually arresting images of Kingdom come and the way we see, through the eyes of the Rev. McCay character, a violent future unfold before us, where the “heroes” no longer worry about saving lives, reminding us how, just like comic books, they have lost their heroic values. Within this panorama, Alex and writer Mark Waid return Superman to its roots as a hero with a strong sense of morality which is worth respecting and taught to others, and to its status quo as the first and foremost superhero in the world. It’s hard to suppress the tears when at the end of this story, Superman puts his glasses back on and goes back to being Clark, therefore revealing Alex’s recurring motif in his work, the return to the innocence of the Golden Age of comic books. The same imagery will be repeated later at the end of the “Justice” miniseries.

Among his other works, Alex contributed to a very gloom Terminator story and some sweet Astro City ones. But his oversized books, which celebrate the anniversaries of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Shazam are particularly heart-warming. Superman, tries to rid the world of hunger and realizes the problem is in people’s mean-spirited nature; Shazam’s inherent child-like innocence makes him help youngsters in need and Wonder Woman’s lack of touch with humanity makes her rethink her mission in life; but my favorite is Batman’s story in which he sees his life reflected in a child who loses his parents the same way he did, making him realize what is the true nature of crime and despair.


Further chapters in the oversized book line deal with the Justice League such as Secret Files and Liberty & Justice. These are just a sample of what’s coming in the epic series, simply named JUSTICE, a tale in which the villains apparently become good guys and the heroes end up looking uncaring and useless in the eyes of humanity. This series brings back memories of the Super Friends animated series but done in a more serious and “mature” way.
Comic books were a children’s game that grew up with us and I’d like to think that those of us who grew up reading them not only still keep that innocence and heroic values but we uphold, and show them to the world, just like Alex Ross does in his work. That is the magic that can be achieved with just a pencil or a brush.

Andres Avila
The Alex Ross Collector