Oh boy. Here we go again.

  • thebelgianpanda

    As someone who spends their day job hardening defenses against those who have coopted Guy Fawkes, I’m getting a kick.  (A good one?  Or just one in the rear?  hard to say…)

  • mattcornell

    It’s about time Shepard found a way to profit from the latest political movement. 

    In terms of relevance, I suppose this is an improvement on his recent murals/posters pinning our economic crisis on Reagan.

    • Guest

       So many haters, but….  I am not a jackass whisperer. 

      • mattcornell

        I don’t hate Shepard. I just think his work is politically and artistically shallow. And I think he’s a craven opportunist. The accompanying artist’s statement for this latest reads like naive self parody.

        http://obeygiant.com/headlines/occupy-hope

        • Guest

          Edited to take that back. What I meant to say was, yes, naive self-parody. Yes. I see that.

  • EH

    Kinda done with hope, dude.

  • GlenBlank

    See the Wonder of Wonders!  
    The Thrill of a Lifetime! 
     A Never-Before-Seen Spectacle!

    Watch in Amazement as
    Iconic Brand Artist 
    Shepard Fairey
       AND 
    Iconic Brand
    Guy “V for Vendetta” Fawkes 
    !!! SIMULTANEOUSLY !!!
    Jump a Very Large Shark!

    (And lastly through a hogshead of real fire!)

  • Jeremy Duncan

    So has he had any actual _ideas_ after “propaganda posters heavily featuring the color red?”

  • http://profiles.google.com/iankeir Ian Keir

    It looks like Cher’s hair on a Guy Fawkes mask.   It looks terrible.

  • Guest

    Love it. Occupy should turn against Obama and run a third party candidate.

  • Guest

    Gosh. Now let’s see what Banksy does for Fairey’s encore.

    My money would be on Robbie Conal to design a poster that has real cred.

  • http://twitter.com/Garratt_J Joshua Garratt

    Personally, I would have preferred he use another face. Actually, if he had selected images from protesters and everyday people it would have been a much better representation of the movement rather than the man who planned to assassinate a huge number of people with explosives.
    The Fawkes iconography in no way is something that should be associated with the #OWS movement. Direct association would mean the purpose had broken down and the protesters had begun to submit to more violent means.
    Even if he used the images of the great “Peace” leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, these images would be more iconic and more substantive to the movement.

  • Wally Ballou

    Yep, because nothing says “we stand for mainstream America” like the visage of a seventeenth century theocratic terrorist.

  • BarBarSeven

    I’m tired of Shepard Fairey—the whole propaganda poster theme is really a dead horse right now—but this is really great.

    If the whole message of the OWS movement is to take back the freedoms taken away from us and to strengthen real grassroots efforts, then this dovetails nicely.

    I’m not personally critical of Obama, but let’s face it: His optimism about “change” has flown straight into the biggest pile of political crap ever thanks to the legacy of Reagan and Bush.  So he faces a true uphill battle.

    More regional politicians have their hands tied thanks to 2-party political nonsense. And OWS is basically a wake up call.

    I don’t see this poster as a dig on Obama as much as a passive-aggresive way of saying: “Okay folks, Obama is in office. He’s not bad, but he needs help. And OWS is the closest thing to help the U.S. has now.”

    • PhantomPeanut

      I got tired of the guy a long time ago. It’s like knock off of knock off trying to be irreverent ultimately saying fuck it and hitting photoshop over other peoples work. This being yet another example of just sheer laziness and knuckle dragging profiteering. His OBEY stuff is what really got me off the train with that guy. Which was someone else’s goofy meme based off an old picture. He made it mugs and shirts.

      I don’t mind the guy making a buck off stuff, but he should be more forthcoming about attribution of original concept. That and not trying to profit off the very people fighting against people like him branding them all corporate. Not everyone is in a Fawkes mask. It isn’t about that. This is cheapening the movement a bit.

      Not much worse than the jay z shirt. Maybe Shep can kick profits toward thhe movement.

      • Spriggan_Prime

        “His OBEY stuff is what really got me off the train with that guy. Which was someone else’s goofy meme based off an old picture. He made it mugs and shirts.”

        I have ZERO respect for Fairey at this point, but I am pretty sure the original OBEY Andre the Giant is definitively his. Unless some other artist finally came forward 20 years later that I didn’t hear about.

        There used to be an Andre face stenciled on the base of a Lamp post outside my Art School dorms which, when returning from a night out on the town we would regularly piss on to show our appreciation of Fairey’s ‘Art’. This was back at his late 90s height when people starting pointing out his plagiarism and clear misunderstanding of the meaning/history of images he was co-opting.

  • phisrow

    Have we reached the point where Shepard Fairey can be fairly regarded as a somewhat more sophisticated implementation of memegenerator.net, capable both of text overlays and of raster-graphic vectorization?

    • EH

      No, the meme movement is a much more sophisticated implementation of Shepard. Shep still has to work within themes, and in fact my initial *post* above originally speculated that it was a hoax (before I had RTFA, natch). It just seems too fiddly and detailed to be Fairey. Oh well, it isn’t, but that’s a real stylistic constraint that he has to work within to avoid criticism such as mine. 

      Heck, his Obama poster was somewhat notable in that it used color at all. Meanwhile, meme macros have been going every which way.

  • theophrastvs

    I get it that the current Guy Fawkes icon is from the v for vendetta film; yet every-time i see him currently asserted i can’t help but wonder if the wearer knows that the historical character’s singular motivation was to murder folks in order to restore centralized papist patriarchal establishment control over the common English folk.

  • mattcornell

    Shameless self promo: I made these back in 2008. The “Hope” poster with corporate logos of Obama’s top campaign contributors. Maybe I should pass some out to the Occupiers.

    http://mattcornell.org/imagelink.php?obey/chase.jpg

  • http://twitter.com/mikeestee Mike Estee

    “There. I fixed it for you.”

    • Frank W

      I may have an even better idea (I think) that I don’t get around to right now: take out the dome tent, use the word CHANGE and it’s perfect.

  • http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

    The poster is embarrassingly lame.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BZPUF2EASKRBUSDXMNN4IRB5GA dahlia

    and it’s not just lame, it’s meta lame.  that’s, like, lame turned in on itself…

  • Mister44

    re: “Mister President, we HOPE you’re on our side”

    Who is “we”. Last I checked Shepard wasn’t doing too badly for himself.

  • Cowicide

    What might be really terrible is this kind of shit ends up at Urban Outfitters.

    Next thing you know there’s hipster books in there with that stupid OWS logo on it that they think makes them look cool or rebellious or something. Then the dumb kids who are simply not hip like me start finding out about things like a single payer system for healthcare and think they know jack shit.

    Then if those rebellious little shits start realizing their parents have been lied to and the spoiled brats demand change in the goddam suburbs and vote and shit… it’s going to make them think they are “edgy” and bullshit.

    That would really piss me off.

    • zebbart

      Cowicide, you win. You have overcome my snobby self righteous hatred of that hacky copyright troll Shepard Fairey. Well done. (No sarcasm, truly well done.)

  • http://twitter.com/arvindicator Arvin Freakin’ Hill

     ”Mr President, We Hope You’re On Our Side.”  Spoken like a true Stockholm Syndrome victim.

  • Radka

    Yeah…. No.

  • lavardera

    I don’t think the Guy Fawkes mask is an appropriate image/symbol for the Occupy movement. I think its become clear that remaining non-violent in the face of  powers trying to destroy the movement has been the most effective path. Leave the masks at home. This poster sucks.

  • monopole

    If he had any clue or remaining credibility he would have simply replaced the HOPE w/ OBEY. But that would be risky and controversial…

  • http://twitter.com/BKImbecile Brooklyn Imbecile

    This movement wouldn’t be happening if Obama wasn’t such a weak sell out.

    • Wally Ballou

      Given the amount of time and effort Obama has put into catering to Wall Street in the last three years, I would characterize it less of a “weak sell out” and more of a “career path”.

      • EH

        The sellouts were really those of us who voted for him. We thought signing that contract would take us to the big time awesome future of the country. Now we find some members of the band are saying maybe Obama Records didn’t have their best interests in mind.

        • Wally Ballou

          Inasmuch as Obama had no record to run on at either the state or federal level, and since he turned down federal financing in order to collect hundreds of millions (a lot of which was from Wall Street),  I can only think that most of his supporters were bamboozled by that hip looking poster.

          Maybe they’ll vote Fawkes in ’12???

  • unaboomer

    Well, now that it’s officilaly a cool brand, I think its time to pack up the tents.   Gross.  

  • Ipo

    For any poster or logo to be truly iconic for OWS,  it has to lose it’s red white ‘n blue. 
    Americans are just  4.44% of the 99%.

  • fett101

    As someone who spends much time on 4chan, I lol’d.

  • http://twitter.com/JerryRaver Jerry Raver

    the original was better:

    http://thebuffingtonpost.com/occupy_movement_-_bad_for_the_economy.html
    http://thebuffingtonpost.com/uploads/Obama_Occupy.jpg

    Not a Huffer fan, but it’s a better image (and came first??)

  • AirPillo

    If he thought being sued by the AP was bad just wait until he’s sued by Warner.

    For the record, **** both those entities and may they burn in hell for using copyright as a tool for the prevention of creativity.

  • http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1

    Robin Hood would have been a better icon.

  • Pedantic Douchebag

    Remixing an iconic image of President Obama with that of a notorious terrorist? Gosh, there’s no way THAT could be twisted in a negative way.

    ::facepalm::

  • jimh

    eyeroll.gif

    Although I liked the original poster, and I appreciated Shep’s support for Obama,  in retrospect feeling like I was sold a giant shit sandwich last time makes this new version just leave a bad taste in my mouth.

  • jimh

    Make no mistake, Wally, I’m quite certain that life under McCain would have been worse, and that no 3rd party candidate ever had a chance…

    • Wally Ballou

      When you realize that McCain and Obama are equally part of the same problem, you’ll be starting to get it.

      • jimh

        I realize they have the same bosses. Do you have a viable alternative- and if you go full Paultard here, I will just reply with “Somalia”.

    • EH

      I dunno, McCain is old and damaged. He might not have been able to pull off Obama’s more nuanced acts.