During our adventures at Melbnova, the Supanova Editorial Crew had the great pleasure to chat with some of our awesome Supa-Star artists and ask them a few questions about their work, including the original Supanova mascot characters (that the really cool Supa-Fans will recognise from our merch!) and the special 100th Supanova illustrations of Anthony Daniels and Adam Savage!
Supa-Star artist Jon Sommariva at Melbnova 2025 (Photo by Leetalicious)
For the 100th Supanova in Brisbane last year, we had the privilege of legendary theatrical poster artist Mark Raats (Star Wars, Indiana Jones), providing original, exclusive prints of Supa-Stars Anthony Daniels and Adam Savage! This year, we got to ask him about the work that went into designing such cool collector’s pieces.
Mark: “Fortunately, I know both Anthony Daniels and Adam [Savage], so I know the kind of things they like. With Anthony Daniels, because I’ve also known him for so long, I know he’s more conservative in a design sense, and he’s very proud of 3PO, so it was easy enough to do a little bit of an homage to A New Hope, but to feature him with 3PO’s helmet was really important because they’re one and the same, they’re interchangeable and they always have been.”
For Adam’s print, there were even more crazy details hidden in the work, for the really hardcore fans!
Mark: “With Adam’s, I know he’s a huge Blade Runner fan, as am I, and when we’re together that’s often all we talk about, so when it came to doing Adam’s one, of course, to do him as Rick Deckard from Blade Runner was a no-brainer. For that one, I selected images for behind him that were specific to only Blade Runner fans. There’s an image to his left on the top which, that particular scene is only seen in one of the BR work-print films, not the final release, and the blaster that he’s holding is actually one Adam made himself, it’s not from the movie, and I’ve actually included Adam’s weapon’s serial number on his gun. I made it really specific for him. So coming up with concepts wasn’t that difficult because I know so much about them both personally.”
Supa-Star artist Mark Raats sketching Clint Eastwood at Sydnova 2024 (Photo by Nathan Black)
Melbourne-exclusive Supa-Star Phil Noto, comics legend known for his work on Star Wars comics, Daredevil, Echo, and more, designed the original Supanova mascots that you can see adorning t-shirts, bags, bottles and more at the Supanova merch stand, two of the many, many original characters he’s designed in his career. Thankfully, he found a few minutes to share his process for designing original characters.
Phil: “I try to come up with an interesting silhouette first, and then play around with the interior details, and depending on what the character’s supposed to be, like with the three Supanova characters, one needed to be military, one more mystical, and just try to come up with something that’s original but still reads as that particular genre.”
He’s also no stranger to having other artists reinterpreting his work in their own style.
Phil: “It’s cool! I love being able to be the creator of something that other people are inspired to draw, or [create] variations on something I’ve created, it’s really neat.”
One such artist is Supa-Star Jon Sommariva, who appeared exclusively in Melbourne, of Neverlanders and MultiVersus fame, who provided Supanova with illustrations of Phil’s mascot characters in his own awesome style.
Jon: “Phil has such an awesome design sense, you can see how distinct he’s made each character with the colour schemes that he’s given them, it was really easy to take those designs and just ‘chibi-fy’ them, I’d call it, where I’m turning them into my style, making them look a little bit more cute and family friendly.”
Photo by Dan Lato
Jon’s style is all about being bright, bubbly, and fun! It can lead to some unique interpretations of characters, and because it’s so distinct, Jon walks the delicate tightrope of keeping recognisable character’s core traits intact while rendering them in his own amazing style.
Jon: “When you’ve got a really strong design, that design is gonna look iconic, and there are things that make it iconic, whether it’s the colours or patterns or whatever, and what you’re doing is taking those strong elements and boiling them down into what’s essential and keeping them onto the new frame that I draw.
“You can think of it like a blank canvas, like those mummy figures that people paint on top of, I’ve got that, I’ve got my structure, and then I’m putting the top coat of paint over it, which is what Phil’s designed, so you therefore end up with my proportions but his design over the top of it. That’s a complex way of explaining it but you’ve gotta get art-nerdy about it!”
Finally, since these three alumni Supa-Stars have been returning for some time, and seemingly can’t get enough, we asked them, what’s the best part of coming to Supanova?!
Phil: “All the people, they’re so friendly. I’ve made so many friends over the years coming here; it’s great!”
Jon: “Definitely meeting all the people that come here, having chats with people, getting to connect with them, and show them my work, getting them to get to know what it is that I do. When I’m sitting there for long hours in my studio working away, you never get to see what the people’s reaction is until you come to a show like this, and you get to see how they react and enjoy it; it’s super cool.”
Mark: “The people. To me, the most satisfying thing, because I’ve done this for so long, is meeting the fans of the movies I’ve been very blessed to work on. You must remember that when I see Star Wars, all I see is work, and not in a bad way, that is what it is, it’s a job, and so when I meet these wonderful fans and people who are excited about the movies, I see in them what my job is about, and that is incredibly rewarding.”
The Supa-Merch is available to pre-order now at supa.fans/GC25Merch and collect at Stand #1024 at #Goldnova, and, catch Mark Raats this weekend at Supanova on the Gold Coast as well!
Lead image by Dan Lato
