Universal Launches ‘Out of the Shadows’ Monsters Art Project

Just in time for screen anniversaries of Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolfman, Universal, in collaboration with crowdsourcing content creation platform Tongal, have launched Universal Monsters: Out of the Shadows, an initiative to create art revolving the studio’s stable of cinematic monsters and have gathered some bold-faced names to help.

The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, It and It: Chapter Two filmmakers Andy and Bárbara Muschietti, creature designer Crash McCreery, mural artist Tristan Eaton and artists Afua Richardson, Matt Taylor and Yuko Shimizu have been enlisted to judge the art project which hopes to find fresh visual ways to bring the classic monsters into the  21st century aesthetic.

One of the goals of the contest is to create an original character inspired by Universal’s classic cast of monsters, including Dracula, The Wolfman, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mummy, Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Invisible Man.

The initiative opened Thursday and runs through March 4. Winners will be announced March 29.

To kick things off, Universal unveiled the pieces created by three of the judges (as shown in the above image). Richardson, best known for her work on the Eisner Award-winning series Black Panther: World of Wakanda and who also worked on Lovecraft Country, took on Dracula; UK-based Taylor handled Frankenstein; Shimizu, who last year won a Caldecott Honor for her children’s book The Cat Man of Aleppo and has created covers for DC Comics, was attracted by Wolfman.

Their artwork will be featured across consumer products launching later this year.

Related Stories

Related Story

'Nomadland' Filmmaker Chloe Zhao Tackling Sci-Fi Western 'Dracula' for Universal (Exclusive)