Tag: Alex Ross Marvel art

Worldwide Holiday Exclusive Alex Ross Black Panther #1 and Batman #50 Catwoman Art Release!

We’re so excited about our Alex Ross Black Panther and Catwoman art! On November 24th, just in time for the holidays, and perfectly timed for the official release of the new Black Panther #1 created by Oscar winner John Ridley and Juann Cabal, ArtInsights is releasing the gorgeous cover art by Alex Ross as a giclee on canvas called “Wakanda Forever“, which it’s a worldwide holiday exclusive! Also, in honor of Chadwick Boseman’s unforgettable portrayal of King T’Challa, and in the spirit of the season, $50 from each Wakanda Forever sale will be donated to the Colon Cancer Alliance.

Also as a worldwide exclusive, we have a sexy, playful, and girlie-in-the-best-way image of Catwoman originally used at a variant cover for Batman #50, the wedding issue, called “Catwoman: Meow“. It comes as a giclee on paper, and shows the feline femme playing with her kittens. Wakanda Forever features T’Challa, as well as the art debut of some of the best and most powerful Black female superheroes in Marvel, including Nakia, Ayo, Shuri, Aneka, Okoye, and other members of the Dora Milaje, who are appearing in an Alex Ross art release for the first time.

Catwoman: Meow is one of the only images used as covers for Batman #50 (the infamous wedding issue) that presents Selina Kyle without Bruce, surrounded only by her feline friends. I absolutely love that, and as art, it makes a wonderful feminist statement about self sufficiency, and speaks to the power of animals to comfort and heal.

Pre-orders begin November 19th at 12am. Here are the images, which you can click on to buy the art, or for more information:

Wakanda Forever: We are so proud to have this exclusive, one of my favorite Alex Ross covers ever.
Catwoman: Meow proves behind every great woman is a great cat (or four!).

Here is the official press release, which offers lots more information about the art:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Leslie Combemale

ArtInsights Animation and Film Art Gallery 

703-478-0778 artinsights@gmail.com

RELEASE DATE:

November 18th, 2021

ArtInsights Gallery Releases Exclusive Alex Ross Limited Edition Art 

“WAKANDA FOREVER” Based on the Black Panther #1 Cover 

To Coincide With First Issue Release of the New Marvel Series Written by Oscar winner John Ridley

Reston Town Center, VA – ArtInsights Animation and Film Art Gallery commemorates the new Marvel Black Panther comic series by releasing a worldwide exclusive limited edition by artist Alex Ross called Wakanda Forever based on the image used for the cover of Black Panther #1. Black Panther #1 is the first in the new Marvel comic book series written by Academy Award-winning writer John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) and drawn by Juann Cabal. Both the comic book and the exclusive ArtInsights limited edition will be released on November 24th. For every piece of art sold, Alex Ross Art and ArtInsights will partner to donate $50 to the Colon Cancer Alliance, in honor of Chadwick Boseman’s unforgettable portrayal of King T’Challa, and to help the fight to end colorectal cancer in our lifetime, a disease that disproportionally effects our Black and Brown communities. Wakanda Forever is a giclee on canvas sized at 31 x 24 1/2 inches and is priced at $995. It will be signed by artist Alex Ross, and is limited to 50 in the edition, with an additional 15 each of Artist Proofs, Printers Proofs, and Executive Proofs. Also on November 24th, AtInsights will be releasing the worldwide exclusive of an Alex Ross image of Catwoman called Meow, perfect for feline fanciers and lovers of women who kick ass. Meow will be released as a hand-deckled giclee on paper for $395 in an edition of 50, also with an additional 15 each of APs, PPs, and EPs, and will be signed by Alex Ross. Both images will be available for preorder on Friday, November 18th on the ArtInsights website. 

Discussing the release, gallery owner Leslie Combemale explains, “We’re very proud to have a worldwide exclusive of an image that includes a number of Avengers characters in addition to Black Panther, but really puts Black superheroes front and center. It is also the first limited edition to feature some of Marvel’s most compelling and powerful Black female superheroes, including Nakia, Ayo, Shuri, Aneka, Okoye, and other members of the Dora Milaje. This piece isn’t just about the drama and strength Marvel superheroes are known for, it’s also about representation. Honestly, it’s about time. Of course King of Wakanda T’Challa, aka Black Panther, is awesome, but these women are spectacular, great role models, and equally deserve to be celebrated.” 

Combemale believes Wakanda Forever offers a unique opportunity this holiday season to give and give back at the same time. “If giving a gift to a Marvel fan this holiday season, knowing part of the sale goes to make a difference in the fight against colorectal cancer makes giving them Wakanda Forever all the more meaningful.” As to the Catwoman limited edition, Combemale relates, “The image is based on a variant cover for Batman #50, the famous wedding issue. This image is one of the only ones created for that issue that features Catwoman, aka Selina Kyle, without Bruce, surrounded by her feline friends. For folks who know how that comic ends, they’ll recognize this art is making a powerful feminist statement.” Combemale ends by saying, “I’m such a Black Panther fan that I have a black cat named T’Challa, and I’ve always loved Catwoman, so these exclusives both hit a place in my heart, and I suspect others will feel the same, for their own reasons.” 

ABOUT THE NEW BLACK PANTHER SERIES:

On November 24th, Academy Award-winning writer John Ridley and Marvel’s Stormbreaker artist Juann Cabal launch an all-new BLACK PANTHER series with an action-packed espionage story that will upend everything in T’Challa’s life and have ramifications for the entire Marvel Universe. About the new series, John Ridley told the New York Times, “It’s a hybrid espionage-superhero thriller, but at its core, it’s a love story, and I don’t mean just romantic love, although there’s some of that as well. It’s love between friends. We’re coming out of a summer where we saw Black people fighting for our rights, standing up, fighting in ways that we haven’t had to do in years,” Ridley added. “And it was really important to me after the year we had where we can have these conversations with Black people and we can use words like love and caring and hope and regret and all these really fundamental emotions that everybody has.”

ABOUT ALEX ROSS

Considered one of the greatest artists in the field of comic books, Alex Ross has revitalized classic superheroes into works of fine art with his brilliant use of gouache paint. Ross has transformed comic books by building on the foundation of great artists who came before him. His paintings have revolutionized the comic book industry and transcended the newsstand origins of his profession. The prolific award-winning cover artist has created images for some of DC and Marvel’s most recognizable comic series. The art of Alex Ross is part of permanent collections in museums around the world. 

ABOUT ARTINSIGHTS

Since 1994, representing a wide range of film and animation art at the gallery in Reston Town Center, ArtInsights focuses on original film production art, and proprietary projects and artist representation relating to the history of animation and film, and the celebration and examination of popular culture by artists working in the film industry. With production art representing films as diverse as Fantasia, Beauty and the Beast, Blade Runner, and Star Wars, and representing artists like iconic movie poster artist John Alvin, studio concept artists William Silvers and Jim Salvati, and Marvel and DC cover artists Alex Ross, the gallery builds collections of original and limited edition art for their growing worldwide collector base. See the work and read the blog on www.artinsights.com.

Here are a few great videos with Alex Ross:

Alex Ross, talking Black Panther:

On Chadwick Boseman’s legacy:

Here is Alex featured on CBS This Morning:

And lastly, I leave you with Alex’s take on how to stay inspired, something we all struggle with when news or the pandemic gets us down, or holiday plans overwhelm:

You can find lots of other videos featuring Alex Ross on his official YouTube page.

Spotlight on Studio Art: The Art of Alex Ross at ArtInsights and on Video

Alex Ross has become the #1 collected artist in comics.  His style changed the world of comic book art, and he brought an illustrative, more Norman Rockwell style, with realistic, hyper-realistic depictions of superheroes as real-life humans, albeit with way more muscles.  As a gallery that specializes in pop culture, we have carried the work of Alex Ross for over 20 years…Now, his agents have finally started making videos where Alex himself talks about his work and inspiration.  I thought i’d talk about some of my experience selling his work, and post some of the videos here:

He talks about his realism in art here:

As great as Alex Ross’s work is, he wouldn’t be nearly as famous in terms of art collecting had it not been for the Warner Bros stores.  They got behind his work and promoted it as real art as well as a collectible.  His images were some of the crowning glories in the stores, always put in a place of prominence. His new limited editions were released to increasingly committed fans who were quickly becoming completist collectors.

I had my own taste of Alex’s enthusiastic fandom when ArtInsights was the first and only gallery to represent Alex Ross Art at a comic convention.  We had a booth at New York Comic Con showing only The Art of Alex Ross.  Alex’s representatives were kind enough to give us some great exclusive limited editions, and we also had full color and graphite originals.  No other art gallery before or since has had that exclusive.

Crisis on Infinite Earths Giclee on Canvas by Alex Ross AP1
Crisis on Infinite Earths Giclee on Canvas by Alex Ross AP1. We released this image in our Alex Ross booth at NYCC.

I had been working with what is now the head of the collections of Alex Ross limited editions for over 20 years at that point, and she knew me well, so she knew I would represent the art with integrity and honesty.  The same agent had been in charge of the Warner Bros. stores before they went out of business, so she knew everything necessary to design and implement a fine art portfolio for Alex Ross.  She’d been doing it for decades.

From the first day of the convention, we were swamped with convention attendees.  Some of them were just fans in love with his work, but not interested in buying art.  Others were avid collectors looking to buy the latest exclusive.  We had a Doctor Strange, Captain America, and Batman exclusive signed lithograph that we sold out of the first day. Had there been any DC Comics original art of the Justice League, a concern in the far east would have bought every one of them.  Alas, he has not been working on DC projects for some time, so there was no art for sale.  Apparently this one group will buy absolutely anything, with almost unlimited funds.  This is one reason why mere mortal collectors should look to graphites if they want something original of his art.

Many people wonder why Alex never comes to conventions.  There’s an easy explanation for that, but I think fans and art collectors often don’t consider it.  Alex still paints in the traditional way.  For the most part, he is not creating inside a computer.  He still uses brushes, models, and paint.  That means that when other working artists can make adjustments by clicking on the mouse of their computer, Alex Ross would have to completely repaint the art.

He talks about physical painting and why he does it:

He is a traditional illustrator in a digital world, but he likes it that way.  His idols are Norman Rockwell, Leyendecker, and the rest of the geniuses of twentieth century illustrative art.  He was particularly influenced by Andrew Loomis, who was not only a great illustrator, but the author of instructional art books essential to the craft.

If you know the work of Norman Rockwell AND Alex Ross, you may recognize the strong influence and reference Alex Ross used from some of Rockwell’s works in Ross covers for Kingdom Come and Justice.  Here is a video of Alex Ross talking about his inspiration for The Justice League paintings:

To my mind, when Alex Ross creates images like the Marvel Shadows and the DC Shadows series, he does his best work.  I usually prefer his images of single characters.  To my mind, we get to see shadows and light playing on the subject more distinctly, seeing more specific choices he’s making.

My favorite images to date, by far, are his images inspired by Universal Monsters.  Created entirely in shades of grey, black and white, these pieces show the nuance with composition, shadow, and light only a great illustrator can express.  There are times when Alex’s color art is so frenetic and intense, I have a hard time focusing.  That’s not to say it isn’t compelling, I just think in Alex Ross’s Dracula, for example, or his Bride of Frankenstein, you almost feel like you could step into the painting and become part of the story.  They are at once evocative of the films represented and seductive as unique illustrations, separate from the subject matter.  Whether you know the stories or not, you are drawn to the tableaus he has laid out before you.

ALEX ROSS UNIVERSAL MONSTERS:

Not only are all the Universal Monsters officially licensed images, the folks at Alex Ross Art got permission and became officially connected with Bela Lugosi and even has the logo of his estate on the certificate of authenticity.  Much to absolutely no surprise, his Universal Monsters giclees on canvas were the hit of San Diego Comic-Con.  They outsold all the Marvel and DC images! 

The whole set of Universal Monsters giclees on canvas by Alex Ross
The whole set of Universal Monsters giclees on canvas by Alex Ross

There were only 15 put aside as matching sets, and they are far less than if you buy them individually and we have #13 if anyone is interested in the whole set.

ALEX ROSS SPIDER-MAN:

We love Alex Ross Spider-Man art.  Whenever we get the opportunity, we get whatever Alex Ross Art releases for our clients.  Alex has loved Spider-Man his whole life, and actually his first memory of him is the live-action character on The Electric Company! 

Spider-Man: Rockomic by Alex Ross Signed Limited Edition Lithograph
Spider-Man: Rockomic by Alex Ross Signed Limited Edition Lithograph

We have a piece called Rockomic and another very sold out one called Spider-Man Visions, plus the more recent Spider-Man: Marvels. My own memory of Spidey is from the Saturday Morning Cartoon, which was the best!  It came on at 6:30 am and I got up especially to see it.

 

Am I the only one who really loves Aquaman?  I mean, he’s not just some stupid character to be made fodder for jokes in Entourage!  Whether he’s the blonde character I know from the Superfriends or Jason Mamoa, who nearly singlehandedly saved the new Justice League movie, I enjoy having him around to manipulate water, make jokes, and talk to fish… Apparently, Alex loves him, too.  

He talks about it:

(If you like the image below, you can find a limited edition of Aquaman HERE.)

If you’re a fan of Captain America (which I am!) and Iron Man, here’s Alex talking about what he enjoys about creating images of these superheroes.  And you can find some great Captain America art HERE.

One of the latest releases from Alex Ross is of Wonder Woman, and it’s called “Wonder Woman: Goddess of Truth”.   After the image was posted on the Alex Ross twitter feed, Patty Jenkins saw it and fell in love with it and sent Alex a note saying how beautiful it was.  The best aspect of Alex Ross’s Wonder Women: Goddess of Truth is how perfectly it translates into giclee. 

Wonder Woman: Goddess of Truth Giclee on Paper by Alex Ross
Wonder Woman: Goddess of Truth Giclee on Paper by Alex Ross

Giclees are basically a very high-quality ink-jet printer.  Instead of only 4 different inks, there are many different ones that spray microscopic drops of paint that read the original within a millionth of a difference in color.  This original watercolor gets translated so perfectly, it really looks like the original.  Actually, I call it “Colors of the Wind” Wonder Woman, and we only have APs. For obvious reasons it was very popular when it was released and sold out immediately.  This image is my very favorite superhero portrait he’s ever done.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll leave you all with videos of Alex talking about his career and sharing advice to artists:

Click here If you want to see all the art by Alex Ross on our site…

and for those artists out there, find inspiration here and wherever you go.  If Alex can do it, so can you.  Make a plan, and stick to it.  Work hard, and stay positive.  For the rest of us, we can be the vital ones who support these visual artists by hanging their art on our walls!