Exciting news, folks:  Jock—the kickass DC Comics artist who created two of the best Batman-themed pieces of art we saw at Comic-Con this year—is releasing the AP editions of his The Dark Knight Rises Mondo poster.  That’s good news, but here’s the even-better news:  he’s also releasing an AP edition of the incredibly-hard-to-find “Villain Variant” of the poster…and for those that buy, there’s a chance that your poster may come with an extremely kick-ass bonus.  Wanna know more?  Meet me after the jump, folks.

Before last month’s Comic-Con, an endless guessing game—the same endless guessing game that the poster community’s always playing—rambled on for weeks.  This particular edition of the game was called “Who Wants to Guess What Posters Will Drop at Comic-Con 2012?”, and it seemed like everyone we talked to during that time wanted to play along.  The predictions ran the gamut from “Zero-Risk Safe Bets” (“Olly Moss is dropping a new Mondo print”) to “Ridiculously Unlikely Long-Shots” (“Mondo is re-releasing Tyler Stout’s The Thing poster as an open edition!”), but one guess that we heard over and over again seemed neither safe nor unlikely:  “I heard they’re doing a Batman series”.

As expected, there were a few Batman-themed prints at Comic-Con (not quite a series, but who knows?  Maybe we’ll see more somewhere down the line, or a Batman-themed show at the Mondo gallery), and it turned out that Jock had two of them available.  Well…kinda.  See, the regular edition of the print (see below) was sold through the Mondo booth just like any other drop…but things were a little more complicated for people that wanted the “Villian Variant” edition of the print.

For that, Warner Bros. set up an elaborate scavenger hunt (of sorts) that apparently involved chasing the Bat-signal around downtown San Diego, Twitter, and riddle-solving (or something:  I’m still not clear on how that all played out).  It was very, very challenging to get one of those Variants—not to mention a big time commitment for people that were pretty occupied with other Comic-Con stuff—and as a result, it seems that Jock’s “Villain Variant” has become the most sought-after Batman print from Comic-Con 2012.  And it’ll stay that way until later today, when Jock releases these:

  • The Dark Knight Rises by Jock
  • $125 AP edition of 40
  • Signed/Numbered

  • The Dark Knight Rises:  Villain Variant by Jock
  • $250 AP edition of 40
  • Signed/Numbered

But, wait, there’s more:  Jock’s going to be randomly including some really cool prizes with some of the prints, including rough sketches that were made during the creation of each poster, a hand-written credit block for the film, A4 Ink sketches of the villains, and final black-and-white art of the cityscape, which was used in the final version of the poster.  As if that wasn’t enough, I’ve also learned that Jock will be randomly sketching on 5 of the AP Villain Variants, each one with something different.  So, you’ve got a 1 in 8 chance of getting a personally sketched Dark Knight Rises Villain Variant if you order that version, and a…well, we don’t know the odds on the other bonuses (we’re not sure how many tubes Jock’s spreading the prizes between), but we know the odds ain’t bad!

So, how do you get your hands on one of these?  Follow Jock’s Twitter feed (@Jock4Twenty) and wait for the announcement and here's his store.  He’ll let you know where the sale’s taking place, and then you’ll have what we imagine will be a very, very brief window to get your print purchased!  Good luck  to all of you who are going after this one today:  it’s going to be a tough drop, methinks.

Stay tuned for more from Limited Paper in the near future, folks!  We’ve got interviews, contests, drop announcements, and various other poster-related shenanigans headed your way shortly.  As always, if you’re a gallery, artist, or just someone with a hot poster-related bit of gossip they wanna share, I can be reached directly at LimitedPaper@gmail.com, or you can follow along with up-to-the-minute (not literally) happenings over at the official Limited Paper Twitter feed, which is @LimitedPaper.  Everyone else?  Sound off in the comments section below!