Brett Favre Posters, Part II: The Ironman Years (1998-2008)
I began the odyssey of Brett Favre’s career in posters last week with Brett Favre Posters, Part I: The Early Years (1993-1997). This post takes us from just past the penultimate year of Brett’s career (1997) to his retirement just over a decade later.
One final 1997 poster I left out of the last post is this truly goofy Nike release – “100% Prime” – which was the absolute worst seller of his career:
A tiny action shot of Brett, slapped on a piece of shrinkwrapped pigskin made to look like raw meat? It may be creative, but it was a complete dud on the market.
Next up was 1998’s “Armageddon”, a somewhat sinister-looking poster from Costacos Brothers featuring Brett throwing downfield from a ring of hellfire. Another uninspired poster, which led to a couple of dry years for Brett fans:
As far as we can tell, the next Favre poster to come along was Starline Inc.’s 2001 release, “Grid Iron Man” – also one of the best, and representative of this era of his career, when he became football’s all-time ironman QB, and rolled along through the years with varying levels of team success around him:
Also from Starline, this classic poster from SportsPosterWarehouse.com’s exclusive “Retro SI” collection (still available), featuring the legendary Favre touchdown celebration:
Also in 2003, Costacos Sports bought out competitor Starline (RIP) and regained their NFL Football license lost two years earlier. They released “True Grit” as part of their NFL line renewal. Also a classic, it seems to have been a bit of a copycat design of Starline’s “Grid Iron Man”:
Two years later, Costacos published “Big Game Action” (2005), which we thought would be the final poster of Brett’s career:
Favre returned for two more seasons, and when it appeared likely that 2007 would be his last, Costacos published “Legend” (still available) , which invokes memories of greatness, and the bittersweet moment of Brett taking off his helmet for the last time:
We were pushing Costacos Sports to produce a “career retrospective” poster before their licensing rights ran out, but it seems that dream is now dead – they simply don’t work that fast, and don’t have the creative thinkers on staff that they once did. For additional images of Favre, you can still purchase these 20″x24″ photo reprints from licensed sports photograph agency Photofile Inc. here in The Sports Poster Warehouse’s Brett Favre Collection:
If anyone knows of any posters we may have missed, let us know! Add a link, or any information, to the comments section of this post, or e-mail us at info@sportsposterwarehouse.com.
Tags: Brett Farve, Brett Favre, Favre Posters, Green Bay Packers
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January 5, 2011 at 1:28 am
I have Bret Favre poster that reads on the bottom 1995M STARLINE, INC., East Elmhurst N.Y. 11370 Photo by Brian Yablonsky Printed in the U.S.A. in the botto left hand corner and STARLINE Logo, Team NFL Logo and Quarterback NFL Club Logo on bottom right nice pic of Brett with the ball in his left hand ready to hand it off to another player. I couldnt find it on here maybe i missed it. Any info appreciated. Jeff