Good evening all --
As you can imagine, I was very surprised to wake up this morning and see such a robust debate going on regarding these posters. I?m overwhelmed and I?d like to thank everyone for taking the time to contribute in such a constructive fashion.
Let me therefore take this opportunity to try and answer all of the questions posed here. I won?t try and pick out quotations from each individual but rather, I will simply put my answers into headings which hopefully will make navigating my verbose response easier..
Genuine one sheet posters:
To be honest and because I?m not a collector, I don?t know the first thing about the specifics of lobby posters and I wouldn?t be able to tell the difference between an S2, an L5 or a B17 style poster. All I can say is that I received a bunch from Lucasfilm which I suspect were the same as those given out at the press conference prior to the launch of the campaign. They are SINGLE side printed posters (white at the back) measuring 27 x 40 inches. I know that some people have never seen this poster type before (traditionally they appear to be double sided) and all I can say in response is that these are what i was given and they match EXACTLY the poster I received about two weeks ago from Lucasfilm signed for me by Ford and Karen Allen - its single sided with plain white paper at the back (see below).
Numbered copies:
As I wrote to one of the Raven members earlier today, Unfortunately I can't do this due to a number of reasons and the most important is because I can't say for sure how many posters will ultimately be out there so numbering to 15 could be misleading. There is also an issue regarding the posters that have already been purchased (and posted out) because they are not numbered and those collectors would in all likelihood be very unhappy if they found out that I had numbered others.
As for the number 15, you might be interested to know that currently there are only around 10 posters that have been signed by me - the additional 5 are extra's that I?m hoping to get from Lucasfilm in the next month or two. I am ASSUMING five more posters (making 15 in total) but if Lucasfilm can secure more then they they'll send the extra's along with the five I am expecting*so as you can see, there is not a specific edition number to this. I CAN be certain that there will never be hundreds of these - 20 tops but I still anticipate around 15...
Poster Value:
As everyone knows, value is a purely subjective thing and unless you are one of the few strictly analytical individuals out there for the rest of us mortals, its normally a combination of subjective liking of the item combined with its perceived exclusiveness.
1) This poster is the first new traditional one sheet done for Raiders of the Lost Ark in 30 years and it - thankfully - wasn?t born in the womb of photoshop as Drew?s Crystal Skull poster was (see Drew?s magnificent book ?The Art of Drew Struzan? for more info). Aside from tweaks to the overall color, the removal of some lines and the reworking of Harrison's nose - all of which I fail to understand - my artwork didn?t suffer at the hands of the studios PhotoShop jockey?s as many do so, what you see in the poster is 95% my original artwork.
2) Although its safe to say that the vast majority of the posters currently being sold are bootleg the thing to remember is that this was an extremely limited release generally and the other thing to bear in mind is that as of this writing, neither Lucasfilm or Paramount are considering making this available to any of their respective licensees as a print to be sold - ever. I realize that this might change given the extraordinarily warm response to this artwork but for now, there are no plans to release this officially - so it IS exclusive no matter how its looked at.
3) Although I don?t know for sure how many signed posters will ultimately be sold (see above) its safe to say there WILL only be between 15 and 20 max. So the value (or perceived value) should be defined by that fact that this is the first new Raiders artwork undertaken in 30 years / poster copies are fairly scarce and they won?t be available at licensed prints / there will be a very limited number signed by the artist responsible for creating the artwork.
Process:
Rocket Surgeon, thanks for asking about the process. No, I don?t use a lightbox but as Drew, Alvin and others do, I will trace things from time to time - like text and certainly tricky items (like hats) to make them 100% for fans. If you?re interested, there are a number of tutorials on my web page that show the process.
http://www.markraats.com/Indiana Jones Painting Tutorial.htm
Signing posters outside of this offer:
Unfortunately, I have decided NOT to sign copies of posters outside of this offer. While this might seem harsh, please remember that I have received literally hundreds of requests for posters that people want to send to me to sign. The sheer logistics of trying to ensure that each poster, mini poster or tiny litho is signed correctly (many people want specific endorsements) and then trying to ensure that each one is posted BACK correctly will take weeks and I as some of you already know I own and run three successful corporate enterprises that take up 80% of my day so unfortunately this means that I simply don?t have the time to do this.
Forged signatures:
This WILL happen once these signed posters get out into the wild so I am including a custom ?tell? on each poster which will immediately let me advise the collector if a signature is genuine or not.
I hope this helps answer some of the questions.
Kind regards and many thanks for the interest.
Best
MARK