Stew,
There are a lot of them that are poorly drawn, yet for some people that is why they enjoy them because it is true art form from the artist. For example, I think Jay Ryan's work falls into this category which I don't enjoy as much as other collectors. A Nightmare on Elm Street poster that I have may look like a chop shop to many people but to me it reminds me of a Van Gough type piece mixed with a little of the Expressionism art movement which later had an influence on Film Noir and darker stories. But I've spent a lot of time in museums so that might be one reason I like some of the posters that other collectors don't.
A Nightmare on Elm St.Another example of a poster is the Terminator poster that has Sarah Conner's face on it with a infrared gun sight dot on her face. Not many people picked this poster up when it was released but if you actually see this poster in person it looks pretty cool. But really you have to go beyond that and feel the poster. The artist used a technique that starts out with smooth gloss paper and it goes into a raised dots off the paper, very much like something I would see in a museum. I personally really dig Tyler Stout, Todd Slater, and Martin Ansin's work. But they are different styles with different view point in order to capture what the film is to them.
TerminatorMy Tyler Stout CollectionIn all honesty, you truly have to see one of these posters in person to understand the print quality and the poster itself. Many of them are made with metallic inks that are soaked into a thicker paper more along the lines of card stock so they are more durable. Many times the artist takes something from the movie that is very integral to the film itself and the fans that love the film. So when you see some of the work you get it more than many others because you know the intricate details of the film itself. The said thing is that many pictures just don't capture essence of these posters. Another major draw for them by collectors is that so many reprints are being made like crazy and it is damn near impossible to fake one of these posters. It would require a lot work to do so.
A lot of these posters have a very nice look to them or some kind of extra something that's put into the artwork. For example, with my Field of Dreams poster if you stand over to the side the players in the field vanish and then as you walk more to the front they pop up and become visible. This makes a lot of sense for anyone who has seen the movie about how the players are ghosts - spirits.
Field of DreamsThe Goldfinger poster is really cool because if you are looking at that poster in low light all you can see is Sean Connery's face made up with gold bars on a black poster (which has metallic ink used on that section) If you put more light onto the poster then you can see in the black area that it is made up of film negative screen shots from the movie.
GoldfingerSeveral of the posters have glow in the dark ink used on them such as the Alien posters and the Gremlins poster. The Good The Bad and The Ugly panels are truly amazing and capture the famous show down in the graveyard at the end of the movie with shots of each actors face, being Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach.
The Good The Bad and The UglyGremlinsRemember The Alamo poster is a fun poster because any major fan of film who has seen a TON of films and knows pop culture will see many things in the art. You can find characters from several B movies in the artwork. I have a close up shot of a small section of this poster on my website so that you get an idea of what I'm talking about. This makes it fun for any movie enthusiast who can spend hours going through the art looking at all the movie references within the piece.
Remember The AlamoHopefully this helps shed some light on why several of us collect Alamo posters. I have several other silk screen prints that aren't part of the Alamo collection that have great work on them as well.
My Other Silk Screen PostersChad
