Hey folks, Harry here... I met Kevin Conran, the production designer on SKY CAPTAIN & THE WORLD OF TOMORROW when I did the big SKY CAPTAIN event screening here in Austin, where we had real P-40s buzz the movie theater, the staff all dressed in period garb and the the theater was sandbagged right out of a Fleischer SUPERMAN cartoon. Kevin came up excitedly to tell me how much he appreciated my geeky enthusiasm over his first Teaser poster for SKY CAPTAIN. And we then began talking about Industrial Age art and design, robots, rayguns, spaceships, etc. It was also around this time that he began doing some amazing art for JOHN CARTER OF MARS - during the period when Kerry was directing - and before a really stupid executive at Paramount (not there anymore) didn't extend the rights. But for the better part of a year - one of the joys of producing JOHN CARTER OF MARS came the regular amazement as I opened up art from Kevin Conran. The Barsoom that he imagined was stunning. The vision was no longer Industrial Age... it was Art Nouveau with a Barsoomian grounding that peppered my dreams over that period with such visions.

Since JOHN CARTER ceased - Kevin and I stopped chatting - and I kept holding my breath waiting to see more of his work in theaters everywhere. And while you can see some of it in MONSTERS VS ALIENS - I missed chatting with Kev - and geeking out on something shared between the two of us. I don't ask to see what he's working on, because frankly... he wouldn't show me. But when I hit on this year's theme of BNAT1138 - I thought about working with my two regular poster artists for BNAT... Gordon Jones and D. Campbell MacKinlay (Cartuna) - but decided to use the BNAT poster as an excuse to bug Kevin and see if he wanted to help me in "throwing a show!"

Kevin got into the spirit of it all very quickly. Producing lovely sketches of ideas - but then he said he had one, that was probably too goofy for BNAT. After explaining for an hour that there was no such thing as TOO GOOFY for a BNAT poster - I convinced him to share with me. It was a sketch of me, shaved bald, being carried by two THX 1138 Android Cops - and their visages were those of Andy Griffith and Don Knotts... I giggled, snorted and cackled. Andy and Don had nothing to do with BNAT - other than... who doesn't love Andy and Don? And the idea of Mayberry in the THX 1138 future... bliss.

Yesterday, Kevin finished and sent me the finished file to send off to the printers... Here it is:

The final poster will be printed up 1-sheet size for the attendees of BNAT1138 - Now - if you want to see more of Kevin Conran's work... Head over to KevinConran.com where he has many of his drawings, sketches and ideas from SKY CAPTAIN up - and a promise to show us other bits of awesome that he's been up to as he gets them cleared! Somehow an ART OF SKY CAPTAIN book never happened? Nor all the toys that every frame of the film was filled with. So for fans of SKY CAPTAIN - go and discover the mighty skills of Kevin Conran! Creator of the BNAT1138 poster!