The Mondo drop schedule is often surprising, but one thing that it isn’t is unpredictable. With very few exceptions, Limited Paper readers know—as sure as day leads to night, as sure as tequila leads to bad decisions, as sure as Michael Bay leads to explosions—that Thursdays in Poster World lead to new Mondo prints: announcements usually arrive on Tuesday, panic tends to set in on Wednesday, and once Thursday rolls around…well, that’s when the page-refreshing begins. It’s like having Christmas every week, only you never know if Christmas is going to be massively frustrating or wildly euphoric.
And so, you can imagine our surprise when—in the middle of a Monday afternoon—Mondo dropped a Ken Taylor-shaped bombshell in all of our laps: this week, we’re all going to be celebrating Thursday on Tuesday. Find out why after the jump, my fellow poster nerds.
When the Tarantino XX Blu-ray set was announced, it arrived with an unexpected bonus: not only would the set feature 8 discs’ worth of sweet, sweet Tarantino goodness in glorious 1080p, but the set’s artwork was also produced by Team Mondo. Specifically, we learned (all the way back in September) that frequent Mondo MVP Ken Taylor would be producing something special to go along with the package.
As per usual, the Mondo crew played their cards close to the vest, but eventually we learned that the set would include a sprawling, Tarantino-themed collage. Once that news broke, everyone felt safe assuming that at least some of Taylor’s design work would end up being made available in poster-form—really, how could they pass on that opportunity?—but until this afternoon that assumption hadn’t been confirmed. Ahem:
Tomorrow, we will be releasing a poster set based on artwork Ken Taylor did for the Quentin Tarantino box set, Tarantino XX, that hits shelves this week. We're extremely proud to have had the opportunity to create the box art for this collection and are even more proud of the artwork Ken created for the set. We hope you guys like it as much as we do. Set includes the cover screenprint as well as a collage giclee.
Well, well, well: how’s that for something worth being thankful for? Let’s take a look at what we’re all going to be competing for tomorrow afternoon (morning?):
- Tarantino XX by Ken Taylor
- 24x36
- 12 color screenprint
- $100 regular edition of 325
- Includes the 9x37” giclee collage pictured below
Now, this is interesting—it’s not often that we see Mondo venturing into the world of giclee prints. Over the past few years, Mondo has proven themselves capable of working miracles where screenprints are concerned (see also: Drew Struzan’s Thing print), so we’ve come to assume that pretty much everything they release will be screenprinted by the good folks at D&L…but for this release, they’ve bucked the trend. How come? Hmmm, I’m reluctant to venture much more than a wild, stab-in-the-dark guess—in other words, I could be way off base here—but I’m thinking that the number of colors in Taylor’s 9x37” collage (combined with the piece’s unusual size) might not have been conducive to the screenprinting process: could’ve been cost-prohibitive, maybe, or could be that the whole “bonus giclee” idea was a last-minute idea that only would’ve been possible to pull off if they went the giclee route.
Really, though, does it matter? The damn thing could be printed on used McDonald’s napkins and it’d still probably look awesome, and it’s a helluva bonus for anyone that’s lucky enough to snag one of the 325 Tarantino XX posters dropping tomorrow (by the way: we don’t have confirmation at the moment that each set sold will feature matching numbers, but it seems like a pretty safe bet). If you’re interested in picking one of these up, you need to spend some quality time with Mondo’s Twitter feed tomorrow, starting first thing in the morning and lasting until…well, until the Tweet goes out and you know it’s time to hit Mondo’s website. Good luck to everyone that’s going for one of these sets: methinks you’ll need it.
Stay tuned for more Limited Paper goodness tomorrow afternoon, folks. At long last, we’re going to reveal the entries we received for our “Design a Limited Paper Logo, Win David Bowie” contest, and we’re also going to be taking a look at a massive sale being held by Mark Englert later in the week (if you missed out on any of Englert’s older prints…now’s the time to get all caught up, and we’ll tell you how you can do that).
As always, if you’re an artist or gallery with artwork you’d like to see featured on Limited Paper (or if you’re just some lucky bastard who happened to overhear a bit of poster-related gossip while standing in the bushes outside Martin Ansin’s house) we wanna hear from you! Email Limited Paper directly at LimitedPaper@gmail.com, and be sure that you’re following us on Twitter via @LimitedPaper for ongoing commentary, news updates, giveaways, and more!