Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Rhys Cooper's "The Toxic Avenger" and "Surfer Nazis Must Die" Movie Posters

You may (or may not) remember I wrote about Godmachine's depiction of the Troma classic The Class of Nuke 'Em High in August. Well, the boys at Skuzzles are at it again, this time with an even more recognizable Lloyd Kaufman creation, The Toxic Avenger, and a slightly lesser known Troma treasure, Surf Nazis Must Die.


Surf Nazis Must Die Movie Poster
Rhys Cooper
12" x 36" - Numbered
Limited to 130

The Toxic Avenger Movie Poster
Rhys Cooper
12” x 36” - Numbered
Limited to 130

Toxic Avenger & Surf Nazis Must Die Double Feature Poster (Variant)
Rhys Cooper
24" x 36" - Numbered
Limited to 50

I've enjoyed many a midnight airing of The Toxic Avenger, but unfortunately I've never seen the Palme d'Or winning (not really) Surf Nazis Must Die. And although I've only seen half the films mentioned in tonight's post, I can say with complete certainty that Rhys Cooper is the perfect artist for this material. Rhys tends to create colorful, dynamic designs, but more importantly, he's not afraid to make something disgusting or gory - two adjectives that are often used to describe the work of Troma Studios. If I had to choose a favorite between the two prints, I'd choose the amazing double feature variant, thereby rendering the necessity to choose one over the other moot, but since that's kind of a cop-out, I'd probably have to pick Cooper's Toxic Avenger print. Though that's mostly because the film played such a big role in my childhood (does anyone remember Toxic Crusaders?). Much like Godmachine's Class of Nuke 'Em High prints, Rhys Cooper's posters succeed not only because they're gorgeous in a toxic-waste-meets-bloody-surfboards-multiplied-by-death-metal kind of way, but because Cooper's style, with his vibrant, no holds barred approach, closely parallels many of the inventive, defiant and earnest qualities which have become hallmarks of the Troma archive.

Rhys Cooper's Toxic Avenger and Surf Nazis Must Die posters will be available later today (11/1) through the Skuzzles storefront at a random time. Both The Toxic Avenger and Surf Nazis Must Die 12" x 36" prints are numbered and are limited to 130. The variant, which I think I'll be going for today, contains both posters, measures 24" x 36" and will be limited to an edition of 50. To find out more about Skuzzles, where you can still purchase some Maximum Overdrive and Class of Nuke 'Em High prints, head over to skuzzles.com and follow them on Twitter @SKUZZLESCAN. And to pick up more Rhys Cooper artwork or learn more about the man behind the mystery, head over to his storefront at studioseppuku.bigcartel.com or check out his Facebook page. Good luck!

2 comments:

  1. The Surf Nazi one is by far the better choice. Get it, and then join the Surf Nazi Army at www.surfnazi.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha love the about section of that site posted by Surf Nazi.

    By the way www.skuzzles.com has been rockin this series out of the ocean... it's hit a new dimension on these prints.

    ReplyDelete

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