THE ART OF MONDO Book Review: This is a Must-Own For Movie Poster Fans
If you've been reading GeekTyrant for a while, you're almost certainly familiar with Mondo, the Austin-based company that's become famous for its gorgeous posters dedicated to movies, TV shows, and comics. We write about Mondo posters on practically a daily basis, and for those of you who don't have room to hang dozens of them on your walls or don't have it in the budget to physically collect all of their incredible art, a new solution has arrived.
The Art of Mondo is a hardcover book filled with highlights and favorites from Mondo's storied history, along with cool behind-the-scenes stories about how the company was formed and how it has evolved into the entertainment behemoth that it's become in recent years. While it doesn't include every single Mondo poster released so far, it does feature a staggering amount of their now-classic images, featuring work from artists like Olly Moss, Tyler Stout, Daniel Danger, Martin Ansin, Ken Taylor, Kevin Tong, and tons more. The book is organized in chronological order, so it's especially cool to see the company's history play out in front of your eyes as you flip the pages from its earliest days making what look like music gig posters for screening events, through to the famous pieces that accompanied the Rolling Roadshow series (which really put Mondo on the map), and finally on to what it is today: awesome artists making striking interpretations of pop culture we love.
This is one of the nicest books I've ever reviewed. It's not some chintzy little thing that crams a few posters onto each page, either; this nearly six-pound beast is an impressive 356 pages, with one glorious poster per page, and since the hardcover book is 9.25 x 12.75 inches (that's BIG, in case you don't have a ruler handy), you really get a chance to luxuriate in each poster and notice all of their details without having to squint to see them. It's one of the best coffee table books I've seen, and if you're the type of person who would buy it and actually flip through it a few times, it's definitely worth the admittedly-a-little-steep $75 price tag. But think about it like this: $75 would get you something like one and a half full-size Mondo posters (not including frames), and with this, you get literally hundreds of them. I'd say that's a worthwhile trade.
I know it's hacky and unoriginal to say The Art of Mondo is a must-own for diehard fans of memorable, eye-catching movie posters, but it's true. This book is a stellar collection of work from one of the best companies in the world at curating movie and TV art, and if you've become a fan of their work through reading about them on this site, there's no better way to own many of their classic pieces than physically buying all of these full-sized posters, many of which have been price-gouged on eBay by now. Unless you have room for hundreds of posters on your walls, this is your next best bet.
The Art of Mondo hits shelves on October 10, 2017.