Comic Book Artist Turns Breaking Bad Episodes Into Killer Posters

If you’re a fan of Breaking Bad — or, for that matter, you just happen to enjoy well-designed, eye-catching illustrations — then you should check out Francesco Francavilla’s amazing “minimalist episode posters” for the first two seasons (not to mention the second half of the fifth season) of the AMC drama.

The Italian-born comic creator, whose work includes runs on Marvel Comics’ Captain America and Daredevil, as well as DC Comics’ Detective Comics and Swamp Thing — calls Breaking Bad “one of my favorite (if not the favorite) TV shows,” and has showed his love with a series of illustrations that manage to summarize key moments in each episode without spoiling anything, thanks to his smart choice of subject matter that manages to be at once oblique to those not in the know and very specific and exact to those who are.

After creating images for the show’s first two seasons, Francavilla decided to celebrate the final run of episodes with all-new images appearing online via his Tumblr and Twitter accounts each week just hours after each new episode airs — an impressive feat made possible by the fact that he’s actually drawing the images while watching television.

“As soon as I see something that hits my creative self, I pencil it down,” he told WIRED via email, “even if that is 5 minutes from the opening of the episode.” After the episode is finished, he inks his pencil sketch, then adds color and posts it online. “If I am out of town at shows, or have people over, I might not be able to do that right away, so sometimes I post it the next day.”

Amongst the many fans of Francavilla’s work are the producers of the show itself. As Francavilla shared back in August, some of his episodic images were used by the producers in a limited-edition hardcover book given as a series finale gift to the cast and crew of the show. As a thank you, Francavilla himself was also given a copy that is, he said, “one of my most prized possessions.”

Although he still plans to create images for the remaining episodes of Breaking Bad he hasn’t illustrated as yet, Francavilla already has his eye on another show to provide minimalist episode posters for, debuting two images for Fox’s Sleepy Hollow last week. From the sublime to the ridiculous? Perhaps, but with Francavilla’s skill, anything can be made to look good, even the goofiest of headless horsemen.