Jokerbama Artist Unmasked -- Sort of

Obama Joker artist unmasked: A fellow Chicagoan

Bored during his winter school break, Firas Alkhateeb, a senior history major at the University of Illinois, crafted the picture of Obama with the recognizable clown makeup using Adobe's Photoshop software.

Alkhateeb had been tinkering with the program to improve the looks of photos he had taken on his clunky Kodak camera. The Joker project was his grandest undertaking yet. Using a tutorial he'd found online about how to "Jokerize" portraits, he downloaded the October 23 Time Magazine cover of Obama and began digitally painting over it.

Mr. Alkhateeb did a "jokerization" of a digital image of the October 23 Time Magazine cover. The still anonymous creator of the poster that began appearing in Los Angeles about a month qago apparently downloaded that image and removed all the extraneous references before adding the word "Socialism". He remains at large.

The guerrilla uses the tools at hand and adapts them to his purpose. The Jokerbama poster had proven so far to be an effective tool for ridiculing the current administration and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what this about.

Further comment by Mike Vanderbeogh at Sipsey Street Irregulars

Jokerbama Goes Viral

and judging by the Bobots reactions I'd think it was the fictional rage virus.

Here Noel Sheppard points to some very unflattering images of George Bush including the Vanity Fair depiction of Bush as the Joker!

Obama Joker Poster Stirs Outrage, Bush Joker Poster Not So Much

Oops!

Maybe the real problem here is the Bobots are just too thin-skinned to play outside.

Poster in 8 ½ X 11 PDF format
Color PDF
Grayscale PDF

More on the Jokerbama

Obama as The Joker: Racial Fear's Ugly Face


The image of Obama as the Joker with the "socialism" label is undoubtedly a powerful visual statement. I didn't think it would amount to much but it has obviously struck a nerve with the Bobots. I wonder if articles like the one linked above are not just a lure to the unknown artist tempting him to reveal himself. I hope he (or she) resists the temptation to grab fifteen minutes of fame because, more likely, it will be days of misery as the Bobots drag him through whatever mud they can manage to make stick.