Simple Tricks and Nonsense

These are retro-styled concept posters by a very talented guy named Eric Tan. I love his work, which draws inspiration from both vintage movie art and those great old Disneyland attraction posters you see in the entry tunnels into The Happiest Place on Earth™. His WALL-E and X-Men items are gorgeous, and these Indy posters in particular really appeal to me. (Even if he did buy into Uncle George's revisionist tendencies on the first one. Sorry, but I just can't bring myself to call that movie Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is a ridiculously inelegant mouthful. The movie I saw in 1981 was called simply Raiders of the Lost Ark, just as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope will forever be known, to me anyway, as nothing more than Star Wars. Call the prequels whatever you like, George, but the first movie in '77 had only a two-word title.) I especially like the Temple style, and the little "filmed in color" tags are a nice touch.

Both Indy posters and the WALL-E ones are available from Acme Archive Direct, although, at $150 a piece for the Indys and even more for the others, they're sadly outside my price range. Perhaps some kind philanthropist out there might consider a donation to a poor, struggling blogger with an eye for collectible pop-cultural artifacts? I don't know for sure, but I'd imagine Tan intends to do a Last Crusade and possibly even a Crystal Skull poster as well...

If you happen to follow that link over to Eric's blog, be sure to check out this entry, in which he recounts his encounter with a boyhood hero, Sadao Miyamoto, the animation director on the classic anime series G-Force (a.k.a. Battle of the Planets and Gatchaman). It's one of those genuinely heartwarming tales that will leave you thinking maybe there are still some genuinely nice people out there in the world after all...