(Above: Alien movie poster featuring the winged Zig-Xenomorph. Photo by Ernie Wolfe. Death Wish 4, from the book Extreme Canvas, is transformed into a monster movie in this hand-drawn poster. Photo by Brian Chankin and Deadly Prey Gallery The Jurassic Park poster depicts a “bonus scene” not shown in the movie. Photo by Brian Chankin and Deadly Prey Gallery by Terry Zwigoff The Ghost World gets the Ghanaian poster treatment. Photo courtesy of Brian Chankin Leonardo’s Cujo poster looks kinda cute in this poster (Photo courtesy of Brian Chankin and Deadly Prey Gallery)
When Dr. Joseph Oduro-Frippon, a cultural anthropologist at Ashesi University in Accra, found out that the owner of a video store in Odoko was closing for refrigerator repairs, he bought all the posters in stock. Most of these were loaned to the club, along with the videos, which became part of the permanent collection of the Center for African Popular Culture established by Frimpong at Ashesi University.
“I would say the acquisition was as much for nostalgic reasons as for professional purposes,” he explains with cool academic precision, declining to reveal how many posters he has in his personal collection.
But for thirty-six-year-old Robert Coffey Galthie, there were no academic obstacles. Posters shaped him, and the art form remains vibrant and evolving.
“I’ve lived around, been interested in, and understood hand-drawn movie posters almost all my life,” he said.
Galti, who hails from the coastal town of Winneba, now runs the Ghana Origins Gallery in Accra. But, back in the 1980s, he was a poster boy.
“We did the advertising; the two of us held hands and put posters on boards and walked around town with bells to raise awareness of the venue. (We also did this so we could get free admission to the film that night.)”
We were in charge of advertising; the two of us held hands and walked around the city with a poster on a wooden board and a bell.
Currently, Ghartey works closely with seven poster artists, including Stoger, Heavy J., Salvation, and Farkira, all of whom started working for Video Club in the mid-90s (and occasionally the great Leonardo, who started in 1986). Everyone still makes movie posters, usually at the behest of Brian Moneyball. Just as they once painted video club names like Zaap, Pal Mal, Princess OSU and Sly Fox, they now include Odd Obsession Video Club, as if Chankin might attract a crowd. They are not wrong.
Driven by pure unbridled aesthetic pleasure, Qianjin began searching for original movie posters from Ghana after discovering Wolf’s Extreme Canvas and Thibaut de Ruyter’s 2009 book Ghanavision. He discovered Galthier buried deep in the lower pages of the World Wide Web and received about a dozen original posters to hang in Strange Obsession. Money wasted little time asking for a new job.
“I don’t know if the artists are still working,” Chankin said, “or if Coffey knows them, or if they’re going to do it, but I asked for all five ‘Death Wish’ movies – I’m a huge Charles Bronson fan – and you know, the first two movies were good, but the other three were really bad.”
Undoubtedly, it is this appreciation for the maligned, miscast and all but forgotten that drives the growing popularity of Ghanaian film posters, especially among cult film buffs and their lowbrow, art-loving relatives. Soon, other commissions started coming in, and Deadly Prey Gallery (named after a low-budget mercenary movie beloved by Galthier and Money) was born. Eight hundred posters, old and new, are currently stored in a studio adjacent to Shankin’s apartment, to his eternal joy.
Eric Bresler, Philadelphia director
The Mausoleum of Contemporary Art, home to the Sindelphia Film Festival and the local Psychotronic Film Association, hosted three exhibitions of The Deadly Prey’s work, the last of which consisted entirely of original African film title posters. Although Bressler is personally partial to the enduring authenticity and style of original posters, especially Mr. Blue’s, he also recently commissioned an Eraserhead for the Ferra Moca Museum.
“There’s a classic tension in any field of collecting,” Bressler said, “between pioneers and newcomers—authenticity versus imitation. In the art world, originals are certainly considered more valuable than newly commissioned works because of their authenticity…(but) it’s really a matter of personal preference. I don’t distinguish between the two periods, although I do in other aspects of poster collecting.”
PhilaMOCA’s patrons are receptive and enthusiastic audiences for works from both eras, but Bresler said its groups like Everything’s Too Bad! ” — a vlog site that commissions the original Jerry Maguire to provide accompaniment to the world’s largest collection of Jerry Maguire VHS tapes — these groups literally have the Internet on the edge of its seat.
For historians and dealers like Wolfe, who still works with many of the first-generation poster artists, such commissions are anathema—they demean the art form. He maintained that if the work were stripped of its practicality and made for Western eyes, it would lose tension, creativity and fearless abandon.
Stoger would have disagreed: “Whether it’s for the cinema or for collectors, I do it.” However, he admits to a longing for the Golden Age, and the notoriety it brought him in his own country.
“When we work in movie theaters, we have the opportunity to see our work played across the country,” Stoger said. “Collectors, they buy one and then you never see that poster or the buyer again.”
Except maybe, on the internet, commissions definitely play a role.
Heavy J.’s vivid take on the ghost world—the Seymour character (played by Steve Buscemi in the film) wields a double-barreled shotgun; Doug holds a grenade; and Enid holds Doug’s head—came to the attention of graphic novel writer Daniel Close and film director Terry Zwigoff, which in turn led to R. Crumb’s deep admiration for Heavy J.’s boldly proportioned poster for Cramb. Leonardo’s My Fair Lady depicts the title character stabbing Pierce Brosnan in the eye with a broomstick while Robin Williams holds her shoe, and the painting went around a few times and had us all laughing through our tears for a while.
Recently, Qian Jin had a Nigerian movie poster designed by Leonardo tattooed on his body. This is the latest work of a growing number of tattoo artists who love posters. One of the tattoos even has Mr. Blue’s signature on it, a nod to the many forged signatures Qian Jin discovered.
“I have been looking for information about Mr. Blue,” Chankin said. Once known as the Jackson Pollock of Ghanaian poster art, Mr. Blue became notorious among collectors for his drinking and painting while still reaching peak heights in the genre, such as his “Predator” mashups, which featured the three-breasted mutant from “Total Recall” and Arnold Schwarzenegger from “The Terminator.” “He has been missing for about eight years, but we have a book about him at Featherproof, which will be published in 2019. It will be the first monograph on a Ghanaian film poster artist.”
We can’t wait.
(Below: My Fair Lady takes revenge in a funny take on the Robin Williams comedy, photo courtesy of Brian Chankin and Deadly Prey Gallery, Twin Peaks poster (with a very scary Log Lady), a very scary take on The Guardians, photo courtesy of Ernie Wolfe Gallery. Excerpted from the book Extreme Canvas 2.)
This article was first published in the 50th issue of “High Fructose” in 2019, which has been sold out. You can get our latest issue by subscribing to High Fructose here. Thank you for your support of our independent publication, it is vital to us. Thank you for reading!
