If you’re the type of sports fan who peruses moderately small sports blogs, then I’ll go ahead and assume that you have at least some familiarity with the Costacos Brothers and their posters that saturated the sports market in the late 80′s and early 90′s. If not, Dull Subjects put together a nice collection and the Legend of Cecilio Guante has written about them as well. Their premise was simple. They’d take an athlete and then dress them in some sort of ridiculous garb, usually based upon a movie, tv show, etc. In fact, they’re still making posters today, but they just don’t seem to have the same flair that they used to. What’s even more disheartening is that it doesn’t even seem that the athletes are involved in the process at all anymore, as most, if not all of the shots appear to from game-action photos. Perhaps, it’s that today’s athletes take themselves too seriously, but after looking over what the brothers Costacos have been putting out over the last few years, I just don’t find the posters to be the least bit enjoyable or imaginative as they were when I was growing up. The newer creations that I’ve seen are either just generic, corny, or borderline racist. This just didn’t sit right with me. So after thumbing through Tirico Suave’s vast athlete rolodex and calling in a few favors, I was able to set up a a handful of photoshoots with some of today’s most prominent athletes. As an added bonus to our loyal Tirico Suave readers, I’ve decided to offer a sneak peak at some of these exclusive posters before they become available to the general public.
