Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Versewas already a work of art—but now, it’s a work of art in a whole new way. Artist Scott Campbell has painted a stunning image featuring basically every single Spider character in the movie, in a single image, and io9 has the exclusive reveal and an amazing process video too.
The piece is part of the new art exhibit “Rise of the Great Showdowns,” which opens Friday, March 8 at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles, CA. It’ll feature over 200 brand-new showdown paintings, many of which you can see on Campbell’s Instagram, all of which will be on display at the gallery through March 16. Click here for more info.
As his first show since 2020 approached, Campbell knew he wanted to bring the latest Spider-Verse to life, especially as he’s a long-time fan of the character. “Spider-Man was the very first hero I became obsessed with at a young age,” he said. “I had Spider-Man coloring books, action figures, pajamas, underpants, records, darts, Spider boat, jacket, boots, kite, cup, basically Spider-Man all the time. My mom [even] made me a Spider-Man Halloween costume in first grade.” Here’s the proof.
A young Scott dressed as Spider-Man.
Image: Scott C
So, when Campbell saw Across the Spider-Verse, it was kind of like watching his wildest dreams come true. “My dream was to see a world with infinite Spider-Men just hanging out enjoying each other’s company, so when the time came for every single Spider-Man to chase Miles, I had never been so excited,” he said. “The chase to end all chases.”
Quickly, Campbell knew what moment he was going to capture for his upcoming art show but, unlike a more traditional image, this one required some additional digging. “I started by freeze-framing the chase scene to try to pick out all the Spider-people. That was just an insane task to try to figure them all out,” he said. “So I scoured the internet to read all the lists that people had made of all the Spider-Men. Luckily I had met the producer Chris Miller before and reached out to him about a possible list they may have made internally that could help, and he connected me with one of the directors, Justin K. Thompson. Sure enough, they had a comprehensive list of this very thing! It was a true lifesaver. All of those Spider people clearly laid out. I am very thankful to them.”
And so, work began, and here’s how that went down in our io9 exclusive video.
Exclusive First Look at Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Painting
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Exclusive First Look at Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Painting
Campbell loved painting all of the different characters on their own but said the hardest part was fitting it all together. “Composing the characters is always the hardest, but most fun part,” he said. “I love imagining them all together like this posing for the picture. I finished the drawing but struggled on whether or not to have the classic animated Spider-Man pointing. I eventually decided that he must be pointing, so I had to move everyone around to accommodate that pointing guy.” Which you can see here now, finally, in the finished image…
Image: Scott C
Measuring 10.5 x 15.5 inches, the finished Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse painting, and 200 other Great Showdowns, will be on display and for sale from March 8-16 at the “Rise of the Great Showdowns” exhibition in LA. Prints of this particular piece are expected to be made available nearer to San Diego Comic-Con. Follow @scottlava on Instagram for more info on everything.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
