Battle Royale
Bryan Lee O’Malley vs. Battle Royale
Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley and artist Kevin Tong have created a movie poster for the cult film Battle Royale in conjunction with Mondo and Tugg Inc.
Mondo is the T-shirt/limited edition print arm of the Alamo Drafthouse, which creates really awesome but also really hard-to-get prints for various films. (check some of their past ones out right here). Tugg Inc., meanwhile, is “a web-platform that enables individuals to choose the films that play in their local theaters and create their own events.” Which sounds pretty cool, if you’ve got the time and energy to pursue it. They’ve recently added Battle Royale to their library, meaning you can create an event in your town and get your hands on some of these posters to give away at it. Or if you’re in Houston, there’s one scheduled for Feb. 16.
Check out the poster and the variant edition below, along with the complete press release.
Avengers Arena: Battle Royale meets Lord of the Flies?
Avengers Arena #1, by Dave Johnson (left), and Avengers Arena #2, by Chris Bachalo
Last week Marvel unveiled Dave Johnson’s terrific homage to the Battle Royale movie poster with his cover for the first issue of Avengers Arena, a series launching as part of Marvel NOW! in which 16 young heroes are pitted against each other for entertainment by Arcade. Continuing the brutal theme of child versus child, The Beat now has the first look at Chris Bachalo’s cover for Issue 2, a clever ode to Baron Storrey’s illustration for the 1980 Perigree edition of Lord of the Flies, by William Golding.
Maybe we should’ve expected more homages when editor Bill Rosemann dropped a handful of allusions in a Q&A last week at Marvel.com: “Avengers Arena gives a high concept itch a superhuman scratch. Throughout history, societies have sent their young adults against one another in competition, whether that’s in war, sports or American Idol. Likewise, art has examined this phenomenon of the older generation sacrificing the younger generation—and also of young warring gangs wanting to prove who’s #1—in everything from the myth of Theseus vs. the Minotaur to Lord of the Flies to Battle Royale to Starship Troopers to Survivor to Hunger Games. Teen vs. teen competition is as old as storytelling—but now it’s time to give it the Marvel twist.”
Perhaps then we should look for those Starship Troopers and Hunger Games (ahem) tributes with issues 3 and 4. Avengers Arena, by Dennis Hopeless and Kev Walker, debuts in December.