Bringing together sport, comics and blockchain for a unique NFT collaboration, this latest collection follows the success of City’s first two drops in 2021 as the club continues to build its presence and collector community in the NFT space.
A legend in the world of comics, José Delbo brings his unique artistic direction to Heroes of Manchester. The upcoming collection, hand-drawn by Delbo himself, comprises five pieces.
Heroes of Manchester and Heroes of the Pitch portray Manchester City’s captain group – Fernandinho, Ruben Días, Kevin de Bruyne, İlkay Gündoğan, and Kyle Walker. Hidden behind the light blue shirts, they possess great superpowers within.
Each player is unique, but together they form the ultimate team, which work together to achieve many great victories. The pieces will also be available as still images.
As part of the drop, there will be a limited-edition collectors’ draw featuring a fifth piece, Manchester City - The Heroes.
Participation will be open to owners of artwork by Manchester City or Jose Delbo, and the winners of the draw will each receive one of the available editions.
The Heroes of Manchester collection will drop on MakersPlace on Wednesday 19 January.
“Following the success of our two collections launched in 2021, we’re incredibly excited to further our journey within the NFT and blockchain space with this landmark third digital art collection,” said Don Dransfield, Chief Strategy Officer at City Football Group.
“Sports and comics are key pillars of popular culture and we’re honoured to have been able to work with Jose Delbo, one of comics’ great visionaries to create this unique and impressive collection of digital artwork.”
Dannie Chu, MakersPlace co-founder and CEO, said: “I’m very excited about this unique collaboration between iconic comic artist Jose Delbo and Manchester City.
“Delbo has spent decades creating the world’s most famous heroes across Marvel and D.C, and with this once-in-a-lifetime collaboration, Delbo applies his craft to uniquely capture the heroic traits of Man City’s globally recognised captain’s squad.
“This is one Drop you don’t want to miss.”
Jose Delbo, who has produced the collection, added: “I am extremely excited to be working with Manchester City on this drop.
“I have been a football fan my entire life and to be able to work with such an amazing team to create football themed superheroes has been really special for me.
“During my 70 year career as a comic artist I have had the wonderful opportunity to illustrate so many of the superheroes we know and love.
“But it is always a special thing to be able to dream up your own superheroes. Growing up in Argentina, football is part of my DNA.
“So when I was thinking through what kind of superheroes football players could become, I thought a lot about the traits of footballers: speed, strength, vision and let my mind run wild with those concepts.
“To me, professional athletes are somewhat like real life superheroes. They train their whole lives to perform at the peak of human ability and are always in the spotlight.
“People love them or hate them just like superheroes in the comics. So for me, turning Manchester City’s captains into superheroes with the powers that the players possess on the pitch just made sense.
“It’s wonderful that we are able to create works like this digitally and on the blockchain to be able to reach an audience all around the world.
“I am very grateful for the opportunity to have been able to work with Manchester City on this drop and create art for their fans and my own!”
NFTs are digital assets and collectibles. The authenticity, rarity, scarcity, ownership, and other properties of NFTs are independently guaranteed, verified, and secured on blockchain.
Unlike most digital content, which is temporarily provided as a service to users on a licensing basis, NFTs are truly ownable.
An NFT is owned by its holder regardless of any decisions taken by any other party, including the NFT’s developer.
Owners are free to do anything they want with their NFTs: they can sell them on a marketplace or trade them for other items.
