"A Wretched Hive," Star Wars-themed print from Martin Ansin for Alamo Drafthouse/Mondo

The fine folks at Alamo Drafthouse today send Boing Boing an exclusive sneak peek at the wonderful poster above, "A Wretched Hive," by Martin Ansin. Comes in a regular (Copper) edition of 360, shown above, and a variant (Metallic Silver) edition of 150. Dimensions: 24"x36". Will go on sale November 18, follow @MondoNews for the "on sale now" announcement.

About the design, the artist says:

I've always liked that scene in Reign Of Fire where these post-apocalyptic survivors re-enact Star Wars scenes for their children; in the future, the stories that we really like have become legends. For this poster I tried to do something similar, but in the opposite direction in time. I wanted to see how the cantina scene would look if it had been illustrated for an old book, if Star Wars was a traditional epic adventure sharing space with King Arthur and Beowulf. Who knows, maybe sometime in the future it will."

More about Alamo Drafthouse, and more about Mondo here.

Most recently, Boing Boing featured Alamo Drafthouse as the distributors of the exceedingly fine Chris Morris "jihamedy" Four Lions.

• [Donald Petersen]

  The only flaw I see: shouldn’t barkeep Wuher be diving behind the bar, bellowing “No blasters! No blasters!”?

  Hell, that’s not even a flaw. I guess I gotta assume this is Officially Licensed. I’d spend a fair amount for this.

• [JDavid]

  Stunningly awesome. Congrats on a wonderful piece of art to the artist.

• [skeletoncityrepeater]

  This is almost as good as the art of Robert Wyland and Thomas Kinkade! If Bea Arthur were in the frame it would be a piece of art history!

• [Anonymous]

  This has inspired me. What I’m going to do is…

  When I have kids, or when my siblings have kids, I’m going to tell them stories. Stories that start with “A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

  There will be illustrations, posters on their walls. “See? That’s when old Obi-Wan cut off the bad man’s arm.” “Yes, Han shot first. But that’s because he’s smart.”

  They will repeat the words, without ever seeing where their myths come from. “These are not the droids you are looking for.” “These blast points… too accurate for sand people.” “A wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

  Then when they’re few years older, and these legends have been shared at bedtime for dozens, if not hundreds of times, it will be time to share the origin with them. And when the fanfare sounds for the first time, when that scroller starts to glide across the screen, they will cry:

  “What is this shit? It’s not even in 3D!”

• [inyourdeathbed]

  great piece, epic, could add a little bit more details tho :)

• [bat21]

  Here is the Reign of Fire scene Martin Ansin is talking about.

• [vytautasmalesh]

  Am I crazy, or is the perspective backwards? Shouldn’t Luke and Obi-Wan be to the right of Panda Baba and…er…what’s his name?

• [Brainspore]

  Beautiful image but frankly it looks too good to be an illustration from an old epic. The line quality, shading, realism and perspective all betray it as the product of someone who spent a lot of time learning contemporary art techniques.

  • [LydiRae]

    Look up Arthur Rackham. Line quality, perspective, and shading aren’t modern trade secrets.

    • [Brainspore]

      I still think the line quality in this piece is more reminiscent of modern graphic novels than Rackham’s work, though both are quite good. At any rate I was thinking of the traditional Beowulf and King Arthur illustrations that predated late-19th/early-20th century printing techniques, more “Book of Kells” than “Watchmen.” Maybe I just didn’t understand what the artist was going for.

• [JhmL]

  Purdy, now that says ‘Star Wars’ to me.

• [Phikus]

  How Ponda Baba loses his arm.

  • [soap]

    Thank you. I only looked to make sure this reference had been made. ;)

• [franko]

  omg, this is gorgeous. ben kenobi has ALWAYS been my favorite. i want this so badly!

• [Anonymous]

  The Robot Chicken send-up has forever changed my view of this scene.

• [Anonymous]

  Why is Obi-Wan using Luke’s Return of the Jedi lightsaber?

• [social_maladroit]

  Neat artwork. Wouldn’t the light saber, emitting a plasma beam, have left a flesh wound cauterized?

  • [Anonymous]

    If it didn’t, there would be a LOT more blood. Including a hose-like stream from the victim.

  • [Anonymous]

    I think you are correct, though the illustration is true to the movie (rather than to what would be reality, if it weren’t science fiction). That bothered me even as a child. Not as much as the Ewoks bothered me, but still…