Climbing Up Your Walls: The Radiohead Poster Blog: The Balloon Head Boy

Artist: Emek
Type: Gig Poster
Print: Silkscreen
Size: 14 x 28
Event Date: 6.29-30.2006
Venue: Greek Theater – Los Angeles, CA
Notes: Signed & Numbered in an edition of 200

Even if you aren’t a poster nerd like me you’ve probably seen Emek’s work somewhere. Some of the most popular and iconic posters of our time are from Emek. In addition to being artist-in-residence for Erykah Badu, he has done some amazing work for Tool, Coachella, and just about every major touring band in the last 20 years. He is also one of the co-founders of Post Neo-Explosionism along with Jermaine Rogers and Justin Hampton. Emek has one of the biggest followings among all gig poster artists, and his posters consistently sell out lightning-quick.

I’ve even dedicated my entire bathroom to his work.

When this Radiohead poster dropped in 2006 it caught a lot of collectors off-guard. It’s so different from the rest of Emek’s work which is usually intricately detailed and exploding with color (with few exceptions). The image here, however, is muted and simple in addition to being mysterious and a little creepy. Balloon Head Boy made it onto a plethora of handbills and paper types including striped gold, cream velvet, and even a massive sheet of holofoil (man, I really want one of those). You can view all the different versions of this beast here.

This poster gravitates around $200 for the regular version and significantly more for color and paper variants. Even the more exotic handbills command top-dollar, some of them limited to only five produced. Those are more collector pieces, though. For Radiohead fans the regular edition poster should suffice.

I only have the regular poster and handbill versions. I have every intention of framing it, but it’s tough to find a frame/mat combo that match the colors and image. Plus my wife is a little creeped out by it, so it isn't exactly at the head of the line or anything.