Mask Ripped Away: Mystery Obama-Joker Artist Revealed
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on August 18, 2009
Mystery solved.
While we still don’t know who altered the original artwork and added “socialism” beneath Obama-Joker’s visage before printing it and posting it throughout Los Angeles and Hollywood, we now know who originally created the creepy image and why.
I know I can sleep better knowing the artist wasn’t a racist or a conservative activist nutjob, as the liberal MSM and Obama-bots have been screaming and gnashing and accusing for nearly three weeks… just a liberal history student in Chicago named Firas Alkhateeb who was fiddling around with PhotoShop.
I was secretly hoping for the artist to be a black grandmother living on a pension in Texas who was royally torqued about the “death panels” against senior citizens in the ObamaCare bill. Ah, well…
The Lone Ranger’s mask, Batman’s mask, Spiderman’s mask… all have been ripped away. And without the sinister, powerful mask of anonymity, the person beneath it is revealed to be just a regular guy. Who is a liberal.
From JustOneMinute:
Obama-Joker Artist Unmasked!
August 17, 2009Holy art project! The LA Times has run to ground the man behind the Obama-Joker poster (but not the “Socialism” caption) – he is a 20 year old Chicago student irked that Obama is insufficiently liberal and (my inference) not tough enough on Israel:
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.
Four or five hours later, he happily had his product.
On Jan. 18, Alkhateeb uploaded the image to photo-sharing site Flickr (shown at right). Over the next two months, he amassed just a couple thousand hits, he said.
Then the counter exploded after a still-anonymous rogue famously found his image, digitally removed the references to Time Magazine, captioned the picture with the word “socialism” and hung printed copies around L.A., making headlines.
Eventually we are treated to his political views:
Alkhateeb says he wasn’t actively trying to cover his tracks, but he did want to lay low. He initially had concerns about …
… connecting his name with anything critical of the president — especially living in Chicago, where people are “very, very liberal,” he said.
“After Obama was elected, you had all of these people who basically saw him as the second coming of Christ,” Alkhateeb said. “From my perspective, there wasn’t much substance to him.”
…Although Alkhateeb claims he was making no political statement with the artwork, he’s plugged into the Washington debate. Though born in the United States, his Palestinian family closely follows Middle Eastern politics.
“I think he’s definitely doing better than Bush was,” Alkhateeb said of Obama. Alkhateeb’s views on foreign relations align with the Democrats, he said, while he prefers Republican ideals on domestic issues.
Alkhateeb’s assessment of Obama: “In terms of domestic policy, I don’t think he’s really doing much good for the country right now,” he said. “We don’t have to ‘hero worship’ the guy.”
The symbolism and drawing power of the Obama-Joker poster continues to flourish.
H/t to deigratia for the link to the fascinating video below of an Obama-Joker contest in San Francisco.
Obama Joker Contest San Francisco Bay Area
Related Obama-Joker reading:
Noel Sheppard, NewsBusters: Obama Joker Poster Artist Exposed As Liberal-Leaning Palestinian
Ed Driscoll: Obama Joker Artist Unmasked
Right Voices: Flickr Deletes Obama Caricature – Flickr – Gawker
Wake Up Black America: The originator of the Obama Joker photo is exposed!! It’s not who liberals would have you think it is.
Founding Bloggers: Obama-Joker Artist Revealed: “Who Said Being A Socialist Is Evil?”
Skeptical Observor: I Wonder ….?
Locust blog: Viral Success Of Obama Joker Posters Panics Authorities
Tim Worstall, Examiner.com: The Obama Joker poster: about time too
The Generation Y Conservative: Obama Is A Bigger Celebrity Than The Joker!
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Rush Limbaugh: Town Hall ObamaCare Protests, “All Statist” Insurance, and “Obama The Joker” Posters and Obama As The Joker, No Joking Matter… but Bush As The Joker, or Dracula, or Hitler? Fair Game and Obama and Less-Obscure Batman Villains and From Cuba: Obama’s Blasphemy… Obama Creepily Depicted as ‘The Joker’
The Sundries Shack: The Riddler Might Have Been a Better Choice, Come to Think of It
LA Times: Obama Joker artist unmasked: A fellow Chicagoan
Specfriggintacular’s Blog: Joker Posters NOT Freedom of Speech?
Digital Perk: Obama Joker Artist Revealed. No Make Up Needed.
The Lenox8081 Exposure: Obama Joker Posters – hahaha!
Big Hollywood: Obama as Joker: Selective Outrage From ‘LA Weekly’ and When is ‘Whiteface’ Okay? When the ‘New York Times’ Says So
Interesting News Items: Joker Outraged Over Obama Poster
Greg Gutfeld, Big Hollywood: Daily Gut: Joker Poster Boosts Obama’s Coolness
NRO, The Corner: Department of Double Standards Cont’d
Atlas Shrugs: The Worm Turns
Michelle Malkin: How quickly they forget
John Nolte, Big Hollywood: ‘jOker’: When the Left’s Scared They Scream ‘Racist’
First Things, The Anchoress: Obama as the Joker
Alberto de la Cruz, Babalú Blog, an island on the net without a bearded dictator: Blasphemy
Blog de KingShamus: Hey, you know about the poster showing Obama as the Joker? It’s racist!
Truth Bucket: It’s Bad for Obama When…
Jim Nolte, Big Hollywood: WaPo: Bush-Joker Kinda Made Sense, Obama-Joker Racist
Legal Insurrection: Obligatorily Snarky Obama Joker Poster Post and Do Unto Obama As Obama Did Unto Bush? You Betcha
Andrew Leigh, Big Hollywood: ‘jOker’: ‘Art is What You Can Get Away With’
Clinging to G & G: Creepy Obama poster has a clear intent
Hot Air: LA Weekly: If you object to calling the Obama Joker poster racist, you’re probably racist
Bulletproof Diction: Intellectual Argument of the Day
KTLA: Obama ‘Joker’ Poster Causing a Stir in L.A.
American Thinker: Barack Obama, laughingstock
Tammy Bruce: You Know B. Hussein Is In Trouble When…
Mail Online UK: Spoof poster of Obama’s face painted as The Joker branded ‘dangerous and mean-spirited’
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