Sunday, January 11, 2009

The Hero Poster

As compared to some sports (notably, surfing) cycling is a sun-soaked desert woefully shy of art depicting its heroes in action. It would be easy to attribute the shortage up to the fantastic drama of the reality of racing itself. John Pierce, Cor Vos, Graham Watson, James Startt and Chris Milliman have all shot incredible images that capture epic moments of human suffering and triumph that seem more reliable and trustworthy due to the actuality of the circumstance.

It may be that cycling's lack of art is related to the amount of fiction being peddled as memoir. The thinking with the acquisition editors is that if it's true, it just seems, well, truer. As a society, our appetite for reality in television, books and the rest of our lives lacks imagination.

From the protagonists themselves to the landscapes and of course, even the machines, cycling is deserving of a truly heroic treatment by artists who appreciate those efforts, those sacrifices and, of course, those wins that come at the end of monumental days.

So when we were alerted to artist and graphic designer Cynthia Lou's poster treatment of her beau Sergio Hernandez (a rising star on Rock Racing), we were both excited and relieved. Excited because we found her take on the heroic to be fun and fresh and relieved because, for once, it was nice to see someone give cycling some attention.

We'd love to see her take on Johann Museeuw, Tomeke, Fabian Cancellara, Eddy Merckx, Paolo Bettini, Rik Van Looy, Roger De Vlaeminck and Eric Zabel ... for a start. A series perhaps?

Here's what we like best: Cynthia is taking commissions. Commemorate your achievement or the high-flying coolness of your sweetie with some of her work.

http://www.mysuperheroposter.com/

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

For starters, any Museeuw and Zabel posters should prominently feature large needles . . . .

Jason Pearlman said...

Great post. Yes, we could use a little more art, but even without it, cycling imagery will always have the dramatic background that stadium games like baseball and football do not have, namely muddied cobblestones, winding stratospheric mountain roads, and a sea of fans at only an arms distance from their heros at some locale like the Kopppenburg or the Poggio.

kale said...

"chicano pride esse"?

Really?

Maybe what cycling needs is a graphic designer that didn't graduate from DeVry, unless it's supposed to be ironic.

Would the Merckx poster say "flemmish pride dude" or "5 TDF wins, eat that!"?

SB said...

Many of you all get up on the wrong side of the bed today?

Museeuw and Zabel are legends of the sport, to not appreciate them and their contribution is to not appreciate cycling.

Unknown said...

http://www.opsalsport.com/modules/gallery/posters.html

Anonymous said...

"[Doping] and [cheating] are legend[ary] [in] the sport, to not appreciate them and their contribution is to not appreciate cycling."

Cynthia said...

Thank you for a fantastic write up!

What I love about design is capturing a moment, an essence, an idea, and making it a reality. Each rider in the peloton, whether a seasoned pro or amateur - goes through a tremendous amount of suffering, sacrifice, fear. For what? For the love and passion for the sport.

What are you proud of? Sergio is proud of the work he puts in to support his team. He is proud to have helped his teammates win national championships. He is proud to be Mexican. He is proud to be American.

And I am proud of him.

Thank you for letting me share this work with you!

- Cynthia

kale said...

Is cliche Pro?

That's just my 2¥. Sorry to offend.

Anonymous said...

http://www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/LTM/Posters/Special_events/Product/Tour_de_France_group_of_cyclists.html

Zhivago said...

"Sorry to offend" really kale? It appears that you enjoy offending and then offering insincere apologies. Do you feel better about yourself now?

Unknown said...

It may not be graphic art but in Joe Parson's book he mentions (and has an example of his) 'hero cards'. I picture a Flemish version of baseball cards but have not been able to track down any info on them. Although his card is just a straight up boy and his bike portrait I can see the opportunity for action photo versions. Has anyone seen these cards?

sartaj faisal said...

Hi

This hero is so better than to others because there are so many people like this hero. But I think this hero likes jacket. Motorcycle Jacket is giving more informations about these jackets.

Unknown said...

Ever see the Race2Replace posters? I thought these were awesome...

http://www.kfadvertising.blogspot.com/2006/09/discovery-cyclings-race-2-replace.html