Will Eisner & Harvey Kurtzman Signature Series T-Shirts by Graphitti Designs

Fans of the golden age of comic books will really be excited to learn about Graphitti Designs’ awesome new line of Signature Series t-shirts, which literally feature the iconic signatures of some truly legendary comic book creators. To kick off this new t-shirt line, Graphitti Designs have released the “Will Eisner” and the “Harvey Kurtzman” Signature Edition T-Shirts. While The Blot loves both tees, is there anything more iconic in the comic book industry than Eisner’s sweet signature? For me it’s right up there with Joe Kubert’s signature, which I can only hope will be included in this t-shirt collection next.

Both Signature Series T-Shirts are available now at the Graphitti Designs online store, in sizes S-XXL, starting at just $19.95.

The Spirit Final One Sheet Movie Poster

We’re just a few weeks away from the world premiere of Frank Miller’s adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit. In honor of the movie’s impending release, The Blot is excited to bring to you The Spirit’s final theatrical one sheet movie poster, which should be plastered in movie theaters around the US as we speak. The promos are airing nonstop on TV these days and the movie actually looks pretty good. How creepy does Samuel L. Jackson look as The Octopus? Sadly though, my guess is that most of America has already tuned out on this movie ever since that first trailer aired way back when.


If this movie can even pull off Sin City type success I would imagine everyone involved would be thrilled. Not sure why I feel this way, but I just don’t see this film pulling in super hero themed summer blockbuster type numbers. As much as I love Frank Miller, I believe his vision pulls in a very niche market and I can’t imagine this move even doing 300 winter blockbuster type numbers. But I could be wrong!

The Spirit premieres nationwide on Christmas 2008.

Watchmen - An All New Set of Character Movie Posters

This latest set of Watchmen character one sheet movie posters blows away the previous set of character movie promo posters released last August. While the original character posters were photos of scenes taken directly from the Watchmen comic books, this set has more of a big budget movie feel to it. The marketing team has also done another fantastic job incorporating quotes from the movie into the posters. They have definitely built upon what The Spirit character movie posters started and taken it to a whole new level.



While I’m still not loving Ozymandias’ look in the feature film, the rest of the characters look spot on. Of the six posters each featuring a different main character, I think I like The Comedian’s the best, with Rorschach’s coming in a close second. What can I say…The Blot has to show some preferential treatment to the creator of the ink blot test, right?



I know I’ve said this before, but the more I see of this movie the more I like it. But, I am interested in seeing if the movie tries to show what it would be like if people with super powers lived among us or if this is a parallel universe totally different from the world we live in and more like the world author Alan Moore created in the comic books.



Watchmen opens in movie theaters across the U.S. on March 6, 2009.

Watchmen - New Teaser Promo Movie Posters

This City Is Afraid Of Me
I’ve Seen Its True Face.

Everything about these new Watchmen teaser one-sheet promotional posters that pair a quote from the movie with a pivotal scene are really great. I thought The Spirit did a good job using quotes on their posters, but I think the Watchmen quotes have a lot more gravitas to them. I’ve included the first one below just so you can compare the two, but you can click here to see what I originally wrote about the one-sheet below.

Justice Is Coming
To All Of Us.
No Matter What We Do.

Watchmen premieres on March 6th, 2009.

The Spirit Male Character Movie Posters

I can’t figure out what took so long for these new The Spirit character movie posters to be released. Especially since the first four The Spirit character movie posters, which featured the film's femme fatales, came out last June. Thankfully the movie’s hero and villain are finally being paid their due respect with these all new theatrical one sheet movie posters. The first poster features The Spirit’s star Gabriel Macht as Denny Colt a.k.a. The Spirit.


The second poster features the hardest working man in showbiz, Samuel L. Jackson, as the movie’s villain The Octopus. Both posters follow the trend of the The Spirit’s previous promo posters by incorporating the movie's script directly into the poster image. Here the lines of dialogue form the buildings in the posters’ backgrounds.


On a side note, it’s nice to see some additional shades of color finally making their way into The Spirit’s advertisements. For a movie that is supposedly not just black and white, so far all we’ve seen is a whole lot of black, white and red in the film's trailers and promotional artwork.

The Spirit hits theaters on Christmas 2008.

Warning: This City Is Protected By The Spirit Movie Poster

While The Blot scrambles to prepare for Hurricane Ike’s impending arrival onto the shores of Texas, enjoy this latest The Spirit movie poster which was originally unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con 2008.


This “Warning: This City Is Protected By The Spirit” one sheet movie, while not necessarily original, is pretty cool. I like the retro, worn feel of the poster and think they did an especially good job with the Picasso-esque Cubist version of the Spirit in the center. Here’s hoping Director Frank Miller has time to get his act together and edits this movie into a cohesive story worthy of the late, great Will Eisner.

The Spirit will be unleashed on theaters this Christmas 2008.

3 New The Spirit Character Movie Posters

Today, The Blot is excited to share three new The Spirit character theatrical movie posters. Now that The Spirit has an official release date, Christmas 2008, the movie can finally move past its Eva Mendes obsession and start releasing some new promo posters that focus on other characters in the film rather than just Mendes’ Sand Saref. All three feature beautiful women and have a very noir feel to them with their black and white color scheme.


The three The Spirit character posters feature Scarlett Johansson is Silken Floss, Sarah Paulson is Ellen Dolan and Jamie King is Lorelei. Combined with the Eva Mendes is Sand Saref character poster and you have a really well done promotional campaign for next winter’s The Spirit. There is just something so unique and ingenious about the posters’ use of quotes from the movie and their placement on the characters’ faces. All of the posters’ different elements come together really nicely and form four truly stunning images.

The Spirit - Two Eva Mendes as Sand Saref Character Movie Posters and Movie News

I love Eva Mendes as much as the next guy, but why is she all of a sudden the focal point of all marketing for this winter’s comic book movie Will Eisner’s The Spirit? Today we have two very different The Spirit character movie posters featuring Eva Mendes as Sand Saref.

The first poster is one of the best character theatrical posters I’ve seen in a while. It sticks to the same color scheme of red, white and black that The Spirit’s previous promotional posters used, and it uses a quote as one of its focal points like The Spirit’s three piece teaser promo posters did. I actually like the way the poster focuses on Mendes’s face and the way the diamond necklace falls from her mouth.


The second Eva Mendes as Sand Saref movie poster is your basic comic book character poster with Ms. Mendes in a generic action pose. Sand Saref, for those interested, is “the Spirit’s childhood sweetheart who turned to crime” later in life. (link) One bit of really good news comes from director/comic book writer Frank Miller’s The Spirit blog.


He acknowledges the backlash of fans concerned that he had changed the Spirit’s classic look from blue to black and the fact that the movie’s teaser trailer looked exactly like his previous film Sin City. I think Miller actually handled both concerns really well, going so far as to say he was so happy people cared enough about the character and the movie to start a fuss. (link) My biggest concern was that Miller had turned The Spirit feature film into another Sin City movie because of how similar the two were in look and feel. He puts my concerns to rest, at least for now, by saying:

And The Spirit as some sort of Sin City Redux? No, Sin City, that one's my own baby, folks, and it looks the way it does for its own reasons. The Spirit is, and will always be, Eisner's Spirit. Anybody watching me on the set could attest that I very frequently drew a storyboard for a given shot first as I saw it, then as Will might’ve seen in—and, in every case, went with what I saw as Will's version.

To drive the point home, The Spirit, despite any accidental impression left by that kickass teaser-trailer, is a full-color movie. Sin City—and I hope to make of it a movie trilogy all its own, come Hell and high water—is, visually, a playhouse for black and white. (link)

If you’d like to find out more on Miller’s reasoning for changing the Spirit’s classic look from blue to black then click here to read his most recent blog post.

The Spirit Teaser Trailer and Poster

The Spirit doesn’t come out until January of 2009, but the movie is doing its best to hype up its take on the classic comic book hero now. Not only has The Spirit started to promote its official website MyCityScreams.com with a new teaser promotional poster, but the movie unveiled its first teaser trailer this past weekend at the New York Comic-Con.


I think all of this PR is a smart move by the producers of The Spirit because its important to latch on to the super hero craze now while the movie industry is gearing up for a big summer. With six super hero/comic book movies coming out over the next four months (Batman, Iron Man, Hulk, Hellboy, Wanted and Will Smith’s Hancock), The Spirit needs to try and connect with the millions of moviegoers attending those movies now in the hopes that it makes it easier early next year to reconnect with them (and hopefuly entice them to the theaters).


I think The Spirit’s teaser movie trailer does everything it hoped to by teasing the audience of the movie to come without giving any real hint of a storyline or the characters involved. What strikes me as odd is how similar this movie’s look and feel is to Sin City. Obviously I knew Frank Miller was going for a similar look when he decided to employ the same filming techniques he and Robert Rodriguez used on Sin City, but with the teaser’s darkness it almost looks like the same movie.

This worries me considering how different Will Eisner’s The Spirit is from Miller’s Sin City comics. I really hope Miller has stayed true to Eisner’s vision and not turned The Spirit into Sin City lite. As much as I loved both the Sin City comic books and movie, I fear Miller might be using this directing opportunity as a warm up to his production of the Sin City sequels scheduled to hit movie theaters in 2009 and 2010.

Will Eisner’s The Spirit - 3 Piece Teaser Movie Poster

Will Eisner is one of the most influential comic book writers/artists of all time and his comic book, The Spirit, is considered by many to be extremely important to the growth and expansion of the medium of comics. He is also credited with establishing the book format of comics, a.k.a. the graphic novel, with the publication of his book A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories.


Many of comics’ most influential writers and artists credit Eisner as an inspiration in their own work. One of those hugely influential creators is Frank Miller, an artist/writer known as well for his legendary work with characters such as Batman and Daredevil as his creator owned projects like Sin City and 300. After co-directing Sin City in 2005 with Robert Rodriguez, Miller wanted to try directing on his own, which led him to Will Eisner’s The Spirit.


Will Eisner’s The Spirit “is the story of a former rookie cop who returns mysteriously from the dead as the Spirit to fight crime from the shadows of Central City.” (link) Gabriel Macht stars as the Spirit, Samuel L. Jackson stars as the villainous Octopus, and Sarah Paulson stars as Ellen. Also appearing is Eva Mendes as Sand Saref, Dan Lauria as Dolan, Jamie King as Lorelei and Scarlett Johansson as Silken Floss. Look for Will Eisner’s The Spirit in theaters January of 2009.


With Miller’s trademark dark and gritty style, The Spirit is sure to be a cinematical masterpiece. I am assuming the movie will look visually very similar to Sin City. The Spirit has made a major comeback in recent years, first with a new comic book series produced by DC Comics and written/drawn by Darwyn Cooke (DC: The New Frontier) and now a major motion picture. While the first teaser poster for The Spirit was released last summer at the San Diego Comi-Con, a new 3 piece promotional poster was unveiled this week. The movie posters can be displayed individually or together as one massive poster.