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Figuring out how to illustrate the problems of DRM in McFlurry machines took some doing, but I'm super happy with how the HAL 9000-eyed poop emoji inside a spattered McFlurry cup (fair use of a McDonald's promo image) worked out.
Another Keppler classic: originally, this was FDR being offered a helping hand to cut through his paperwork. I added in one of the elephant heads I'd cropped out for election illustrations, and used it to represent "not forgetting."
The underlying image is another Keppler, showing death flamboyantly dicing with a millionaire. I added in an official (hence public domain) Reagan portrait, some monopoly houses, and a vintage aerial photo of Levittown, halftoned to disguise scaling artifacts.
More of Keppler's outstanding Uncle Sams! Add in a super-rezzed-up US $100 (all that intanglio looks great at high mag) and you've got an instantly arresting image.
The impatient guy makes another appearance in this WPA image of an adult literacy class; he's joined by another "business man" type, this one from a midcentury ad for a multi-level marketing scheme selling…business suits! The pupils' heads are all HAL 9000 eyes, natch, but don't miss all the little Easter Eggs, like the reeve and peasants in the frames on the walls.
The guerrilla fighter is back, this time standing atop some mainframe equipment ganked from a Univac ad. The halftoned RSS logo in the background really works, especially with a partially blended GIMP "supernova" effect behind the rebel.
I spent a bunch of time experimenting with different ways of making emphatic speech bubbles and it paid off here; that poop emoji's gawlix is in a good home. Halftoning the foreground element (the poop) works surprising well here. I should do more of that.
Lina Khan's future is the future of the Democratic Party – and America
Keppler's Uncle Sam Cop is back, along with another Keppler – a carpetbagger flying through the air after getting a kick in the pants. I got good use out of one of my Democratic Party donkeys here. The background is a half-tones WPA travel poster for Montana.
Cars bricked by bankrupt EV company will stay bricked
I actually made this brick by hand: first I rescaled a box image until it had the right proportions, then I found a public domain texture that was the right kind of brick and used the perspective tool to put it over each face of the box. I told you public domain bricks are hard to find.
It was very satisfying overlaying all the elements of the Fisker car I cropped out onto the brick.
Nothing exceeds like excess! The flayed face with eyeballs comes from a 19th century book of French anatomical drawings. The calipers' handles just didn't look right (I referred to stills from Clockwork Orange to try and get 'em to work), but then I hit on the idea of using the "As Seen on TV" logo, which worked perfectly. The halftoned K-Tel ad-card background doesn't quite work, I think.
This is actually two Kepplers; the original guy in the leg-hold trap is some lost-to-history politician embroiled in a lost-to-history scandal. But once I added (yet another!) of Keppler's Uncle Sam heads to his body (recoloring his coat and converting his trousers to red stripes), it became a perfect visual representation of America, trapped. The halftoned US flag is my favorite background yet.
When it came to finding heavily armored and armed weirdos, I was spoilt for choice; same goes for grainy photos of vintage malls that look good after halftoning. Add in the goofy, grinning newsie's head and overlay his hat in camou, and it's perfect.
Finally, I got a chance to use Keppler's "Capital Controls the Senate!" I agonized over which corporate logos to use. Boss Tweed is back, with a Trump wig and MAGA hat.
Antiusurpation and the road to disenshittification
A diptych! Both sides' backgrounds come from Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" – hell on the left, heaven on the right. The happy gas-jockey's old-fashioned ethyl pump divides the scene. The head-devouring dragon (with HAL 9000's eye) is a delightfully gory detail from Goltzius's 1183 painting of a couple guys having a hard time indeed.
I know, canonically the sirens who tempted Ulysses were merfolk, not half-woman/half-birds, but all the merwoman versions have a ton of naked breasts in them, and frankly, Waterhouses's 1891 "Ulysses and the Sirens" just rips. It took a lot of fiddling with the perspective tool and the clone brush to swap their bodies for the Bluesky butterfly wings, but it still looked weird until I mapped in a kind of scaly, butterfly wing texture.
Shifting $677m from the banks to the people, every year, forever
I replaced Moses parting the Red Sea with Keppler's Uncle Sam Cop, but something still wasn't right. Then I figured out how to turn the Red Sea into a giant, aquatic US $100 bill (loooove that intaglio!) and it was awesome.
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Kitsch: Art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic or knowing way.
I find the concept of Kitsch to be a more classic definition of the modern-day slang “camp.” Kind of like when something is so awful, and ‘lowbrow’ you have no choice but to feel a sense of appreciation -whether for its classic nature or sentimentality. The first weeks of Visual communications we discussed how art has power- that it is an active entity. I do believe that this concept is true on an individual level because something that is impactful, meaningful, or powerful to one person, might not have the same effect on everyone.
Like the 2019 Met whose theme was “camp” – when ‘bad taste’ is a ‘vehicle for good art,’ as described by Bonnie Wetheim of the New York Times.
That’s basically the definition of Kitsch. So, like all art, being perceived as good art was up to the eye of the beholder- just like power given to classic art.
One of my favorite examples of ‘good art’ in ‘bad taste’ is the new movie, “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,” that just came out (hellooooo Pete Davidson and Amandla Stenberg).
There are many pop culture references made throughout the movie and many trendy words like ‘gaslighting’ and ‘triggered’ which made critics cringe. But I LOVED it.
Although a horror/slasher movie, the way the characters interact is hilarious and a true commentary on how being ‘chronically online’ can affect our relationships- and it was FUNNY.
To me, this is Kitsch because the sheer garishness of the buzz words would be weird and cringy to someone who might not understand that it is purposefully in ‘bad taste,’ BECAUSE it makes ‘good art,’- at least to me. Because isn’t all ‘good art’ a reflection or commentary on real life?
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