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Mondocon 2016: Horror Houses Come to the Mondo Gallery

Published Sat, 22 Oct 2016 09:00:57 -0500

Last updated Mon, 24 Oct 2016 10:37:57 -0500

Brandon Wainerdi writes,

The third annual MondoCon is finally upon us and, if you aren't already familiar with Mondo and the world of screenprints and alternate movie posters, prepare your wallet. You've seen their posters before, from Olly Moss' Star Wars trilogy to the Tyler Stout's take on Kill Bill. Their posters have become almost as iconic as the movies they portray and we'll be coming live from Austin, Texas to show off all the vinyl, posters and toys that they'll be exclusively revealing and selling at the con. With artists like Jock, Becky Cloonan and Francesco Francavilla joining the ranks as Mondo regulars, comic artists are well represented this year at the con.

(And don't get too attached if you see something you really like … some of it may make its way online but most will sell out at the event.)

But to kick off the weekend, Mondo hosted a new show at their gallery, featuring original paintings, ink works and screenprints of some of the most famous houses in horror. Drawing inspiration from Psycho to The Thing, Home: New Works by Jason Edmiston & Ken Taylor is an all original (and all black / white / red) take on the scariest places in cinema.

Artist Jason Edmiston was kind enough to chat with us for a second, where we caught up about his thought process behind the pieces, as well as plans for the weekend and beyond. Here are some excerpts from our talk:

What are the limitations and the benefits of just working with two colors?

The goal of this show was to do something a little more focused on the imagery and not so much on the color work. My pieces tend to be super saturated and high contrast and we wanted to do something, for lack of better description, a little more sophisticated. We wanted to downplay the color. If we were to pick one color in a monochromatic piece … if you're doing horror houses, it's gotta be red.

Let's talk about the two screenprints (the Halloween and Nightmare 3 images shown below): what inspired these?

The thought with these images is that, as paintings of houses, they don't necessarily make a movie poster but they could be a scene from a movie for a lobby card. This is the sort of imagery that they would show: here is a scene from the middle of the movie, doesn't it look exciting? Don't you want to see this movie? It was just a nod to those 70's and 80's lobby cards.

What about the rest of the weekend at MondoCon? What do you have offered?

I'll have some brand new Eyes Without a Face. And a Demagorgon. My book launch, Visceral, which is my career-spanning work and then my remarques on my Hateful 8. (THEY ARE RIDICULOUS. Check them out.) I still have a few left to do when I go back to my hotel room.

I'm going to do an interesting thing with the remarques: they're all a set price but they're random … people will buy the poster but then they'll get a ticket to randomly select one of the 15. You won't know which you get until you open it.

To close out, how would you buy your book if you aren't at MondoCon?

If you're not at Mondo Con, you can go to jasonedmiston.com or from Amazon. It's ready to ship!

We're off to a great start over here in Austin and some really cool stuff is in the works. Keep me and my budget in your thoughts. Let's get the show on the road.

The show, Home: New Works by Jason Edmiston & Ken Taylor, runs from October 21th – November 5th at the Mondo Gallery in Austin, TX (4115 Guadalupe St).

Words: Brandon Wainerdi (@ActuallyBrandon)

Pictures: Jason Kauzlarich (@TheyLiveObey)