Spring match donation week / Remembering ROBERT McGINNIS (1926-2025)

SPRING MATCH CAMPAIGN: Own one of Richard Amsel's personal MAD MAX posters!

First, our SPRING MATCH 2025 donation promo has now launched, and will be active through Friday, April 18th. Donate any amount for a chance to win one of three MAX MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME posters from Richard Amsel’s personal collection! Other rewards perks are also available, including high-quality prints (both archival paper and canvas) and postcards of select pieces.

Your donations will also help us qualify for a potential $1,000 matching gift from our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas. Check our DONATE/CONTRIBUTE PAGE for more information.

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ROBERT McGINNIS (1926-2025)

Finally, I want to pay tribute to the great ROBERT McGINNIS, who died on March 10 in Connecticut at the age of 99.

McGinnis was the legendary illustrator behind countless paperbook books and famous movie campaigns, including Breakfast at Tiffany's (his first film poster assignment), and Barbarella. But perhaps it's his work for the James Bond series for which he is best known, from his collaborations with Frank McCarthy on Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, to his solo painting efforts with Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker.

That's a legacy of three Bond actors, across eight Bond films. As David Leigh writes in his James Bond Dossier:

His hand-painted images helped define the look of Bond at a time when a poster wasn’t just part of a marketing campaign — it was often the first impression, and sometimes the most enduring one. ... Today’s film posters, with their floating heads and Photoshopped symmetry, do the job of announcing a release. McGinnis’s work did more than that — it made the film desirable. His Bond posters in particular had character, precision and flair. They were full of life, hand-built and thought-through, not constructed on a screen in a rush to meet a marketing deadline.

McGinnis represents a generation of artists now in their twilight -- a fire soon to be sadly extinguished. I feel it's fitting to compare it with a quote from the Bond film Octopussy, "Mr. Bond is indeed of a very rare breed, soon to be made extinct."