Storm Thorgerson, one of the key figures in album art graphic design, and who created some of the most iconic album covers in rock history, including ones for Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, died today at the age of 69. The artist died peacefully after having battled cancer for a long time, according to The Guardian.

The English-born Thorgerson had a storied career with the many album covers he created, but the signature one that may be the standout is the simple, yet stark and highly memorable triangular prism, emitting a rainbow of colorful lines set against a jet black background which made up the cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, an album which became one of the biggest sellers of all time and just recently celebrated its 40th anniversary [...]

In Jason Reitman’s Young Adult, Patton Oswalt plays a partially disabled man who has an affinity for making his own whiskey and customizing action figures. Oswalt got the idea for his character to have the action figure hobby as a fan of Jamie Follis—better known by the name “Sillof“—an artist and custom toy creator and designer.

As Oswalt best describes him, Sillof is an “’action figure customizer’ the way Van Gogh was a ‘painter,’” and through this admiration of the artist’s work, the two connected via the Twitter and began exchanging ideas.This all led to Oswalt commissioning a new line from Sillof, something the artist rarely does. [...]

The Art of BioShock Infinite
Writer: Julian Murdoch
Dark Horse
Release Date: April 9, 2013
Hardcover
Cover Price: $39.99

Written by Julian Murdoch, The Art of BioShock Infinite allows fans of Ken Levine‘s BioShock series to delve deeper into design of BioShock Infinite.

This deluxe hardcover by Dark Horse features production designs and concept illustrations focusing on main characters Booker DeWitt, Elizabeth, and Songbird from the BioShock Infinite video game, as well as the city of Columbia — the fabled floating metropolis that serves as the game’s setting. BioShock Infinite takes place in 1912 during the rise of American Exceptionalism. The player assumes the identity of DeWitt, a former agent of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. [...]

On Tuesday Disney released the mammoth, 10-disc Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled Blu-ray set containing all six of Marvel Studio’s first blockbuster superhero adventures and a host of exclusive bonus features. The set also came with a special code that buyers could enter at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Mainframe website and view a video preview prepared by Marvel that offers some tantalizing glimpses at their upcoming Phase Two movies Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and their first Phase Three movie Ant-Man.

Last night some enterprising individuals posted the video online but Marvel and Disney quickly exercised their legal superpowers and had it pulled. Fortunately for us they were not able to pull down a host of still images from the preview that survived. Some of them we posted yesterday before we knew for sure they were legit, but now we have a ton more to share with you.

You can check them all out here below. [...]

All great scripts begin with a rough first draft. When the writer first puts pen to paper – or fingers to keyboard if you prefer – they use the initial draft of their screenplay to start working out characters and concepts that until then have existed only in their fevered imaginations. Rough drafts rarely come much rougher than George Lucas‘ original vision for what would become the movie that defined his career in cinema and made him a cultural legend, Star Wars.

Dark Horse Comics is adapting Lucas’ first draft of his blockbuster outer space adventure that launched a mammoth franchise into an eight-issue comic book miniseries entitled The Star Wars, the movie’s original title. Check out a page of artwork from the comic here below. [...]

Four rather cool pieces of possibly legitimate conceptual artwork from three of Marvel Studios’ forthcoming Phase Two movies have leaked online, giving us a greater idea of the expanded scope and design Marvel is bringing to this next huge step in their total conquest of comic book cinema. Below is some concept art for sequels Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Thor: The Dark World, as well as for Guardians of the Galaxy.

First we have an image from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, depicting Cap (Chris Evans) battling it out with the titular villain, a resurrected Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) [...]

Have you wanted to own an original drawing or painting of your favorite movie or comic character? You might think it would cost a fortune and be difficult to obtain. But it’s not. There are lots of up-and-coming artists who offer some really reasonable prices for a one-of-a-kind piece. When it was first discussed that Geeks of Doom wanted to spotlight these artists, I immediately had a couple of names at the ready-not just from seeing their work online, but because I have commissioned artwork from them.

And the one from whom I have purchased the most this past year is Justin McCafferty. I first saw his work on Instagram and immediately fell in love with it. I bought a Batman Returns Catwoman that he had made and posted for sale, but the rest of my purchases were commisions across the board: a classic Black Canary, Harley Quinn from the Arkham Asylum game, Catwoman from the Arkham City game (for a friend who collects Selina Kyle stuff) and Mystique in her classic white dress. He has very reasonable prices, too. Heck, he even has shirts and other merchandise available for purchase! [...]

Frank Cho: Women, Book Two
Foreword by Geof Darrow
Artwork by Frank Cho
Image Comics
Release Date: January 16, 2013
Cover Price: $24.99

The second volume of Frank Cho‘s Women is, like the first, an art compilation of the talented illustrator’s work specifically focusing on his studies of the female physical form. Comprised of finished comic book cover artwork, the original penciled and inked versions, as well as outlines and other BOOBS ballpoint studies, the collection is fairly pleasing to the eyes (correction: MORE THAN pleasing to the eye), and will be a must-have for any aspiring comic book artists.

There is very little text in Women, Book Two. Aside from the descriptive captions and the book’s foreword, Image Comics has genuinely allowed Cho’s artwork to speak for itself and remain open to the interpretation of the audience viewing the work. This is great, because I can’t stand art books with far too much text. Just give me the description and more breathing space for your art – I don’t need your fucking history, just give me the art. Save the text for your biography. This book avoids all those traps and focuses on BOOBS Cho’s work [...]

Author Clive Barker, whose books launched the Hellraiser and Candyman film franchises, is also an accomplished artist. His artwork has accompanied several of his books, like Thief Of Always and the Abarat series.

Today, Barker posted a photo of a painting he did called “Death of the Endless” based on the character Death from Neil Gaiman‘s popular comic book series, The Sandman. A black and white version of this painting was the frontispiece for the 1996 short-story anthology novel, The Sandman: Book of Dreams.

Check out the full-color version of the painting here below [...]

Paleyfest honors the best of TV, and this year’s Paleyfest lineup is sure to please fans of all kinds. This year the Paleyfest lineup consists of The Walking Dead, Parenthood, Community, New Girl, American Horror Story, and more. So to celebrate great television shows, Paleyfest has commissioned Gallery1988 to create five posters for the shows that will have panels in the coming weeks.

Hit the jump for a look at all the posters and all the info you need to know to obtain them. [...]

Hot off the heels of a very successful Oscar poster release, Mondo is working at getting ready for their next big gallery celebrating one of the best shows on television. The poster company has just announced that they would have a Game of Thrones themed gallery that will be held between March 8 – March 14, 2013.

The first Game of Thrones collaboration was actually held at last year’s San Diego Comic Con where it was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews. Of course since this is Mondo, that goes without saying.

Hit the jump for more info about the gallery that will be held early next month. [...]

Ben Affleck‘s dramatic thriller Argo, based on true events, is up for seven major Academy Awards tonight. (If you haven’t seen the film, there’s still time to watch it online through Instant Video before tonight’s broadcast.) Affleck directed the film (no Best Director nod for this unbelievably), in which he also stars as Tony Mendez, a CIA operative tasked with rescuing six Americans who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Iran who went into hiding at the home of the Canadian Ambassador during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Mendez came up with a cover story for getting into Iran: He posed as a Canadian filmmaker scouting for locations in Iran; the six Americans were to act as members of his film crew. But in order to make his cover story believable, he had to act as though the film was really being made and it had to be a project that would warrant needing locales in Iran. As luck would have it, the perfect script was found for the mission: Lord Of Light, based on the science fiction novel of the same name by Roger Zelazny.

Before the Lord Of Light script became the basis for the Argo movie that Mendez would use as his cover, the rights had been optioned by producer Barry Geller, who wanted to turn it into a movie and then use the sets to create a theme park to be called “Science Fiction Land.” Things didn’t work out the way Geller planned, obviously, but when the project was still in the planning stages, Geller had hired famed artist Jack Kirby, who co-created major comic book characters like the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Captain America, and the Hulk, to do concept art. Now, some of that art has made its way online; see some of the pieces here below [...]

The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has partnered up with the people of Gallery 1988 and fellow artists to commission creating posters for the 2013 Best Picture Nominees. Oscar.com revealed the poster specs, which could mean that these posters could go on sale. And if you are a cinephile, a fan of any of these movies, or love to collect posters created by independent artists, then you should be hoping that these go on sale, because these posters look great.

Check out the posters of all nine of the nominees below and don’t forget to tell us which ones you would like to have hang on your walls.

Below is all the info you need to know about the posters, plus a small profile on the artist behind them. Be sure to check out Oscar.com and Gallery1988.com on occasions to see if these posters do go up on sale [...]

Releasing your video game controllers and picking up a book hasn’t been easier since the release of Chronicle Books’ recent coffee-table beauty The Art of Wreck-It Ralph. It’s game on to explore this eye-catching, mind-blowing, and precisely-designed volume of exquisite artwork!

Disney’s attractive attention to detail carries through in this work from Chronicle Books. The Wreck-It Ralph touch literally permeates through each of the thick, glossy 160 pages. To the book’s benefit, the filmmakers behind the groundbreaking action-adventure flick serve as its writers. Disney-Pixar’s John Lasseter lends a kind, thoughtful preface to director Rich Moore’s reflective foreword. Jennifer Lee, Wreck-It Ralph co-writer, and Maggie Malone, director of development at Walt Disney Animation Studios, seamlessly translate all of the fascinating film content to each portion of their co-authored book. [...]

We’re back again with an exclusive first look at a bunch of covers courtesy of our friends at Dark Horse comics. First we have the regular cover for Amalia’s Blade #1 by Michael Dialynas as well as a variant cover by Guy Davis. Then we’ve got two series that wrap up in April with their fourth issues — The Answer! #4 by Mike Norton and The Black Beetle: No Way Out #4 by Francesco Francavilla.

Then we’ve got covers for four collections hitting stores in June. Check out The Victories, Volume 1 by Michael Avon Oeming, collecting the five issue superhero/sci-fi adventure miniseries. Next we have the first volume of The Original Daredevil Archives collecting the first four issues of the golden age classic. Then there’s Forbidden World Archives, Volume 2, collecting the weird and wonderful anthology of science fiction and supernatural fantasy. Finally, there’s the next in the long line of Dark Horse’s Creepy Archives, Volume 16 featuring work by Alex Toth, Wally Wood, Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson, and Richard Corben.

All this and more can be had, and all you have to do is pre-order them with your friendly neighborhood comic book dispenser.

Now, check these covers out right here after the jump [...]