Laurent Durieux's "Gigantor" Art Prints

Is there anything more Japanese than giant robots? Sure, there's sushi, Godzilla, MiniDisc players, but after that, I have to assume it's pretty much all just giant robots. As a quick disclaimer to this review, I've never read any of the Gigantor manga, but I have seen a few episodes of the Gigantor cartoon, or as it's known in Japan, Tetsujin 28-go, mostly because I was inspired to seek out the series after hearing about these prints, and what I saw was pretty cool. There's no doubt the show looks dated (mind you, it originally aired in 1963), but I love watching older animation and it's surprisingly violent. I shit you not, there's plenty of scenes where Gigantor, a massive robot who could have easily disabled an enemy's vehicle in a safe manner, instead opts to fly right through it, or smash it with his massive metal gauntlets, thereby condemning the boat's / jet's / tank's operator to a slow and fiery death. In other words: it's kind of awesome. What's even more amazing is Laurent Durieux's killer prints based on the series, don't you think?

"Gigantor: The Lab" Art Print
Laurent Durieux
18" x 24" - Numbered
$65 (Standard Edition) - Limited to 150
$250 (T-28 Metal Edition) - Limited to 10

I was never really into Transformers as a kid. I'm not sure why, it just didn't interest me. In fact, I don't think the whole giant robot thing really clicked with me until I read Geoff Darrow's amazing Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, and was later reaffirmed by the wonderful Iron Giant. Laurent's prints perfectly capture the mind-blowing enormity that a towering metallic defender of justice should possess and somehow makes it look easy in the process. From a distance these posters appear to be fairly straight forward (beautiful, yes, but simplistic), though that couldn't be further from the truth. Take a closer look at the two images included in this post, and you'll immediately notice just how involved all of the hatching and cross-hatching is - the print looks clean, while also mesmerizing on a granular level. I'm honestly at a loss to tell you which one looks better, but I have no doubt these will be a big success come Thursday morning!

"Gigantor: Tokyo Night" Art Print
Laurent Durieux
18" x 24" - Numbered
$100 (Standard Edition) - Limited to 75
$250 (T-28 Metal Edition) - Limited to 10

Laurent Durieux's Gigantor inspired prints will be available on Thursday (3/22) at 9:30 AM PDT through Dark Hall Mansion's online storefront. The regular (non-metal) version of "Gigantor: The Lab" will measure 18" x 24", cost $65, and will be limited to an edition of 150. The regular (non-metal) version of "Gigantor: Tokyo Night" will cost $100 and will be limited to an edition of 75. For the big spenders, the appropriately awesome metal versions of both prints will be limited to an edition of 10 and cost $250 each. If you'd like to learn more about Dark Hall Mansion releases, I highly recommend you visit darkhallmansion.com and follow them on Twitter @DarkHallMansion. To see more of Laurent's work, head over to his incredibly impressive Flickr page.