Mondo Announces 2013 Comic-Con Plans and Changes

Mega poster retailer Mondo has finally announced their Comic-Con plans, but with a twist!!

They are pre-selling their posters before hand for you to pick up at the con. We are unsure if the list is all of their posters, but they are all that have been announced so far. As someone who has seen their lines last year and simply walked away from that mess I completely understand why they are making these changes.

Please check out the post below for all of their information to date as well as a preview of the Dark Tower poster (and info on the Pacific Rim posters being sold on preview night) below that!!

San Diego Comic-Con is insane. It just is. If you’ve been in year’s past, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If 2013 is your first year, you’ll find out soon enough. It’s insane in every sense of the word. Insanely big crowds, insane cosplay, insane amounts of cool stuff, etc. It’s FULL ON SENSORY OVERLOAD for like 4 days. SDCC used to be just a thing I read about in Wizard Magazine, but then a few years ago, we got in. A generous couple of friends vouched for us and 2 years ago, we got to rent part of a booth that had gone vacant. It was quickly evident that we were going to be busy at the booth as there was a mob of people on preview night even before the doors opened.

Last year, in 2012, it was crazier and we expect that 2013 is going to be even more so. So, the reason for this long winded intro is to announce that we are making it 3 years in a row. We will be coming from Austin with our wares and setting up at Booth #936. At this booth, we will be releasing posters, shirts…. and, if everything goes right, records. If you’re reading this, then you will most likely have seen a few images debuted online. This is a small fraction of the total output we’ll have at SDCC this year and things will be similar to a degree in how we sell them, but enough is changing that we thought it polite to give you all a heads up.

The first change is that we will be pre-selling 3 different editions of posters online before the convention. Each edition will then have a corresponding artist signing taking place upstairs away from our booth at a designated signing area. These posters will ONLY be made available to those who purchase them online in advance.

1) CONAN THE BARBARIAN by Martin Ansin with Martin IN PERSON signing on THURSDAY 7/18.

2) We’re finally releasing it! The (22-color) Drew Struzan poster for THE DARK TOWER with Drew in attendance for a signing on FRIDAY 7/19

3) SPIRITED AWAY variant and HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE variant by the one and only Olly Moss with Olly signing in person on SATURDAY 7/20. (The regular edition of these posters will be available ONLINE at a later date.)

These pre-sales will all be going ON SALE this Friday, July 12, 2013 via our web-store. To repeat, these WILL NOT be available for purchase at our booth at SDCC, and the signings will not be at our booth. You will claim your posters / attend the signings at the SAILS PAVILION at the convention center (Booth AA07. It is located directly above Hall C where you claim your badges.) Since these are going to be released at the SAILS PAVILION, we have to sell them in advance. Don’t worry, though! If you miss these, we’ll still be having several releases at our booth that won’t be pre-sold.

What does this mean for me…the customer?
Believe it or not… not very much. This actually makes things quite a bit simpler. Several other companies pre-sell items before SDCC and allow for pick up. You alleviate quite a bit of stress by purchasing the item in advance and simply need to get in line to redeem your purchase. Lines will move much faster, and you won’t have to wait around all day.

The one thing you must note, however, is that these purchases are 100% NON TRANSFERABLE. You (and we mean ONLY you) will need to be absolutely, beyond certain that you will be available to pick up the poster you purchase ON THE DESIGNATED DAY.

“I couldn’t make it yesterday!” or “Can my friend / poster-buddy pick it up?” or “I have something that conflicts that day!”
Just want to put this out there now…. if you say any of the above to us at SDCC, it won’t change anything, unfortunately. This is one rule that we cannot bend or break on. If you cannot pick up your poster at the signing, we will make accommodations for it to be available until the end of the day at our actual booth (#936,) but after that you relinquish your rights to the poster, and there are NO REFUNDS. Again, if you cannot pick up the poster in person… with a valid form of ID as confirmation… DO NOT BUY ONE. The name on the ID you provide must match the name on your order to receive your poster. We will make ZERO exceptions on this.

How does picking my poster up work exactly?
All you need to do is bring a form of ID and a print-out of your order confirmation. It’s that simple. The signing time will be on your order form as a reminder (11:30AM PST). Just come find a MONDO representative at the end of the line and we will check you in. It’s that simple!

I missed the online drop! I’ll kill you, Mondo!
This is a reasonable response to have and one that we can only absolve by reminding you that we will still have at least a DOZEN additional releases over the weekend at our actual booth. Not much else has changed, sales-wise, from how we operated our releases last year, with the obvious exception of the pre-sales detailed above.

A few other minor changes:
We will still have bags and rubber bands available for you, but we can no longer be responsible for bagging / rolling / unclipping binder-clips / etc. We apologize for any inconvenience, but this is simply an effort to keep the line flowing as smoothly and quickly as possible.

We will not be TWEETING to announce our sales. Safety is a huge concern to us and SDCC and we want everyone to be in one piece at the end. Nobody needs a broken bone to show that they’re a fan, so we’re going to have a daily schedule for you guys to check out showing times of releases. We won’t tell you what’s going to be released, but we think you’ll be happy with our releases this year. Also, a lot of media is asking to cover our stuff, so keep an eye online. I’m sure something will pop up before we can show you in line.

Badass Digest is also revealing the Dark Tower poster as well as listing the Pacific Rim posters that will be available at the Mondo Booth during Preview Night.

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

I first read those words when I was thirteen years old, a sense memory so vibrant it would take a stroke for me to forget it. I remember what I was wearing, eating, where I was sitting, precisely the way I felt when I first read Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, the first book in his fantasy epic series The Dark Tower. And what I recall most vividly is the way that gunslinger, the last knight of Gilead, the final descendant of Eld, loomed impossibly tall in my mind. Roland Deschain, legend, hero, gunslinger.

The great Drew Struzan, a legend in his own right, has taken that impossible hero and captured him in a poster so stunning it defies words – and Mondo will be selling it at Comic-Con this year with Struzan in attendance for autographs!

If you’re having trouble catching your breath, you’re not alone – I haven’t stopped hyperventilating since I heard the news. Just LOOK AT THAT MAJESTY. The extra-nerdy of you probably recognize this astonishing work of art. That’s right – this print is based on the painting that Struzan created for The Mist. In the opening moments of Frank Darabont’s film from the Stephen King novella, Thomas Jane’s character David Drayton – a movie poster artist like Struzan – is working on this painting in his studio. Fans of The Dark Tower recognized the lanky cowboy in shadows at once. The original painting from the film is $120,000 on Struzan’s website, so I trust you’ll agree that $275 for the poster is quite a bargain.

Oh yeah, the sale information. I’m burying the lede in all my excitement! The Dark Tower will go on sale along with Mondo’s other Comic-Con prints for Conan the Barbarian, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle in a pre-sale this Friday, July 12. They’ll also be available for purchase at the SDCC Mondo booth. AND Mondo’s big Comic-Con partnership is for Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, with four new prints by Kevin Tong, Ash Thorp and Vania Zouravliov available at the convention. The specifics:

Listed below are the Pacific Rim posters that will be available for sale on preview night, Wednesday, July 17th when doors open:

PACIFIC RIM by Kevin Tong
Size: 24” x 36”
Edition: 375 Regular, 200 Variant
Price: $45 Regular, $75 Variant

PACIFIC RIM (Kaiju) by Ash Thorp
Size: 24” x 36”
Edition: 350
Price: $50

PACIFIC RIM (Jaeger) by Ash Thorp
Size: 24” x 36”
Edition: 350
Price: $50

PACIFIC RIM by Vania Zouravliov
Size: 24” x 36”
Edition: 145 Per Colorway
Price: $50

There will be new posters available at the Mondo booth daily, and for the first time a Comic-Con presale for select prints will happen this Friday, July 12 for new artwork from Martin Ansin (Conan the Barbarian), Olly Moss (Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away) & Drew Struzan (Dark Tower). All three artists will be in attendance at Comic-Con and available to autograph the prints. Check Mondo’s blog for more details on the pre-sale and signings.

Listed below are the posters available for presale this Friday, July 12th, follow @MondoNews for exact sale times.

DARK TOWER by Drew Struzan
Size: 20” x 36”
Edition: 450
Price: $275

CONAN by Martin Ansin
Size: 24” x 36”
Edition: 450 Regular, 225 Variant
Price: $50 Regular, $75 Variant

SPIRITED AWAY by Olly Moss
Size: 20” x 36”
Edition: 225 Variant Only
Price: $90

HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE by Olly Moss
Size: 20” x 36”
Edition: 225 Variant Only
Price: $90

I honestly cannot think of a combination of factors more brain-blowingly cool than Mondo, Dark Tower and Drew Struzan. Throw in a little The Mist – one of the best monster movies of our generation – and the folks at Mondo have truly outdone themselves. And don’t forget that Drew Struzan will be at Comic-Con to autograph the prints of lucky attendees. But if you can’t make it to San Diego this month, you can still get your hands on the last son of Gilead – follow @Mondonews like a hawk (like David the hawk, in fact!) this Friday, and may ka be with you.