If you’re not familiar with it, The Ritzy Picturehouse is a lovely cinema in Brixton, and given my love of film, it was great to be contacted by one of their staff, Sam Clements, about possibly collaborating with them and creating some artwork for their Ritzy Jukebox events. At these events, fans can vote for one of three films, the winner of which is screened on the night of the event.

The choice of movies for the June event was Superman, Watchmen and Batman, and with Superman being perhaps my favourite movie of all time, let’s just say that I was more than happy to be involved. Amazingly, the Ritzy had managed to secure the last remaining 35mm print of Superman in the UK. It was a little wobbly and fairly scratched, but it was still great to experience the film in this way, as I was too young the first time around, and in fact Superman 3 was the first of the series that I was able to see on the big screen. Of course the film has flaws, but I think that John Barry’s great production design still stands up, even where the special effects don’t, and Geoffrey Unsworth’s cinematography does a brilliant job of distinguishing between the ‘three films in one’, namely Krypton, Smallville and Metropolis.

As you may know, the studio fired Richard Donner before he had chance to complete the sequel, and this has to be one of the worst decisions in cinema history, especially in the hindsight of the excellent Richard Donner cut of Superman 2, which I thoroughly recommend checking out if you’ve not seen it. They were so close to having it completed as they were shooting 1 and 2 at the simulataneously, and it’s so much truer to the character than the direction which Richard Lester decided to take.

After all these years, and all the superhero movies we’ve seen since, putting nostalgia aside, I still feel that Christopher Reeve puts in perhaps the best performance we’ve seen from a mortal man masquerading as a super one. He manages to be both graceful and strong as Superman, and whilst it’s not for everyone, I still absolutely love the knowing stupidity he portrays as Clarke Kent. Also worth mentioning is the strength of John Williams’ score – not just the superlative main theme, but the balance and changes in tone that he manages to reinforce from start to finish, whether it’s the majesty of Krypton, the touching theme for Jonathan Kent’s death and funeral, all the way to a simple theme which perfectly encapsulates Otis’ buffoonery. For my money it’s his best work.

Anyway, that’s enough of me wittering on about how much I love the movie (!) – here’s the artwork I created, which was projected before the event as the fans were taking their seats. The eagle-eyed amongst you (or should that be those with super vision) may notice that I reused my illustration of Marlon Brando holding an infant Superman aloft from my Mark Millar biography illustration. And why not. By the way, It looks like I’m going to continue collaborating with the Ritzy, so keep an eye out for future projects.