Alex Ross’ Comic Superheroes Headed to Crypto Art World

Alex Ross and OTOY have teamed up to release the comic superhero illustration giant’s digital archive of animated work as a non-fungible token (NFT), the digital asset class now sweeping the art world.

Ross, the star Marvel and DC Comics illustrator, will see Shooting Up the Mainstream, a digital collection reflecting a lifetime of his work, released on the RNDR blockchain platform. The move is touted as the first NFT from a permanent digital archive.

OTOY — which has Endeavor chairman Ari Emanuel, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and former Lucasfilm CTO Richard Kerris on its board — is drawing on IP verification and blockchain computing technologies to create a deep registry of the artists’ collection.

An NFT technically is a unique unit of data stored on a blockchain with certification of authenticity that is not interchangeable. After taking the art world by storm, the digital assets have segued into music, writing and other mediums, with talent agencies even signing up NFT players.

Shooting Up the Mainstream released as cryptocurrency art comes as blockchain NFT has been able to reshape popular culture by offering verifiable ownership for digital goods using smart contracts that register the provenance information in a shared and public blockchain database.

Ross’s digital artwork, featuring illustrations of superheroes like Superman and Batman, and villains like the Joker, has been scanned and uploaded to OTOY’s RNDR blockchain network, where information about each work will be registered in a blockchain database and verified using RNDR’s authentication technology.

“For over a decade we have been developing graphics and computing technologies that have democratized 3D content creation, enabling artists from around the world to create 3D works on par with a Hollywood studio and bring virtual worlds to life. Blockchain NFT technologies are further revolutionizing the media and entertainment landscape, enabling creators to create a shared repository for their creations that can grow over time, enabling them to experiment with emerging AR and holographic media technologies,” OTOY founder and CEO Jules Urbach said in a statement.