Title: Holywoodoo:Incredibles Movie Posters du Ghana
Publisher: Dernier Cri. La Friche, 41 Rue Jobin. 13003. Marseille
Publication Date: 2003
Binding: Soft cover
Book Condition: Near Fine
Edition: 1st
150 x 210mm. 128 printed pages of full-page colour posters. Collection of film posters created for the film market in Ghana, not a marketplace in any way comparable to that of Europe and the US. In Ghana films are released onto a circuit comprising of television sets and video recorders where they play in small huts to the paying public, no cinema or projector in the traditional sense, and the movies themselves an eclectic mix of everything from Hollywood action features, kung fu flicks, animation, through to domestic horror yarns and pot-boilers. Promotion is also rather unique. The posters for these films are all hand-painted, executed in a colourful, primitive style. In the case of American titles, these posters are often adaptations of the original promotional artwork, but lacking in any detail or technical flair, likenesses are way off the mark, attempts at replicating existing artwork are particularly dire. I m sure that Juxtapoz readers and the like would argue that I'm missing the point. Other paintings rely entirely on the furtive imagination of the artists themselves: take for instance the barmy image used to publicise Scanners 3: The Take Over (comprising solely of a very basic man in very basic flames) or the three fighting femmes that are the Deadly China Dolls (approximating something akin to what Aline Kominsky might draw on a bad day). Species 2 depicts a prone woman with one alien springing from her belly and a second one springing from her chest onto the face of a startled soldier. Similarly, posters for homespun movies exhibit a creative flair that is as insane as the films themselves sound (as in the case of much movie promotion however, I doubt that many movies here live up to the promise of their posters). Demonic Cat features a person being torn to pieces by cats (the pet variety), the evident feline leader generating beams from its eyes. A boy with a misshapen head stands nearby (?) holding a bloody dagger. Deliverance is the only other word on the poster. Highway To The Grave has a bible, a topless woman in water (beams again radiating from her eyes), a fish tail sticking out of the water, a snake on the grass and a man with a big nose. Religion is a persistent them, one poster advertises a film called Testimony whose tagline is Good pastor vs Bad pastor . Beneath a man dressed as a skeleton, the titular pastors battle it out with rays radiating from their eyes. Elsewhere there is a rat with a man s head, and two women remove a head from a body. In creating their own tableaux, the Ghana artists are pretty scatty with figures and elements of the composition seemingly placed at random over the page. There is almost no regard at all for interaction. Another good case in point is the poster for Evil in the Land. Here, a hunchback man (who may or may not be wearing clothes) squats on a sheet, while all around him are figures and creatures locked in their own particular spaces (a man with his arms outstretched, a cat with a man s head, faces with wild expressions). This book contains material not commonly seen before. Short French introduction, distributors/credits [Thanks to David Kerekes]. Not found in COPAC, nor in BL or any library.1,000 printed, 250 of which for La Pop Galerie. Bookseller Inventory # 4196