A Giant-Size ‘Frankenstein’ Poster Highlights Stellar New Universal Monsters Art

In the world of alternate movie posters, the name Tyler Stout always stands out. Stout’s work has been a gateway to so many young poster fans, so anytime his name shows up on a list of people contributing to a show, we take special notice. When that list is of artists doing work of the iconic Universal Monsters, it’s an extra level of special. And when that list is split across simultaneous events happening in both Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, California, as a kind of mega exhibition, it’s monstrous.

io9 is excited to exclusively debut Tyler Stout’s incredible and unique new poster for 1931’s Frankenstein, which will first be available at a special Universal Monsters show, presented by Coda and Sideshow, at Canopy Gallery in Austin, Texas, on Friday. (There’s also an event at Celebrity Authentics at Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles, but more on that below.) Unlike a traditional poster-sized image, though, Stout and the team decided to go big with this one. It’s a 24 x 72-inch print, meant to approximate the giant size of the iconic monster. Here’s the full image.

This two-sheet screenprint costs $120 in an edition of 300. There are also two other versions, one only available to attendees of the Austin show (they’ll have to sign up in person), and a third one will be at an upcoming convention, to be announced.

“The work of Tyler Stout undoubtedly popularized the notion of alternate film posters more than other artists in the field. His work spoke to people with active relationships to cinema,” Coda co-founder Rob Jones told io9 over email. “His dense servings of characters, their relationships, and the pressures that act upon them remain unlike any other artist’s approach in the medium’s history.”

“While it’s always a joyous jolt to work with him, the primary pleasures come from watching his brain fly while it figures out where to land on the page,” Jones continued. “In this instance, it lands on two pages, or sheets rather. Tyler hoped to evoke a pop culture icon that beckoned from the back pages of his childhood comic books: the Jack Davis ‘Life Size Frankenstein’ poster. To make that happen feasibly as a screenprint, he divided the image across two 24 x 36-inch sheets. Results are unlike any AMP made for Frankenstein and all expertly printed by DL Screenprinting in Seattle.”

“I adore these results and perhaps overly identify with Henry Frankenstein, so consumed with personal pursuit that Tyler shows him living within the confines of his own work, i.e., the monster,” Jones concluded.

Now, if the show were just the Stout Frankenstein alone, it would be awesome enough, but there’s so much more. Coda and Sideshow have recruited an incredible number of artists to do original art and screen-printed posters themed to Universal Monsters and here’s just a small sample of the other work in the shows.

In Los Angeles, the show takes place at Celebrity Authentics at Universal Citywalk starting today, October 23, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and will remain on display through November 2. In Austin, the show takes place at the Canopy Gallery from 6 to 10 p.m. on October 24. It remains on display there only through the weekend, October 26.

Each location has a wholly unique show so each poster seen above will only be available, at least at the start, at those galleries (which we’ve noted in specific instances above). Leftovers will go online sometime in November and will be split into multiple waves. Keep an eye on codacurates.com for more information or head to Sideshow for more specifics.

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