 *not the actual placement of the billboard :-) Short story- to contribute, just click on the link- https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-times-square-039they-live039-trump-billboard |
| Longer story- "You Damn kids, get off my lawn!!” screams Donald Trump scowling from the Trump Tower penthouse windows.
Why is our President pitching a fit? Well just keep on reading...
Welcome to our GoFundMe to erect the famous Trump/They Live image right in Trumps backyard, Times Square!
I’m Mitch O’Connell (not Mitch McConnell) a freelance artist who luckily stumbled into doing a drawing that became iconic.
This was originally finished way back in 2015 for a horror film festival featuring the John Carpenter classic “They Live”. If you haven’t seen the movie, the basic set up is that aliens are overtaking Earth, but to the naked eye they blend in looking just like humans, until you look though the special sunglasses to reveal their true ghastly skeleton-like faces.
I had nothing against Trump, to me he was just an amusing self important host of my favorite TV guilty pleasure, “Celebrity Apprentice”, but as I was penciling this piece he had taken it up a notch and announced his run for President. I looked at my sketch, then looked at The Donald waving from his golden escalator on tv. Then I became transfixed by the Trump hair, rubbed my chin and thought, “Why not?” and out popped this parody!
Since then, it's taken off on it's own as the most popular thing I've ever drawn. :-)
If you remember a couple years back I had the adventure of trying to put up an earlier version of the art on a billboard in Washington DC, but that was denied. I branched out my search and went through every billboard company I could locate for a space anywhere in the United States, but no one would touch it. The wonderful ironic end to that story was that it finally went up on a giant 40’ wide billboard above the most traveled highway in Mexico City!
For all those juicy details-
https://mitchoconnell.blogspot.com/2017/07/too-hot-for-america-only-mexico-city.html And for video footage of the billboard- https://mitchoconnell.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-trumpthey-live-billboard-video.html
That was then, this is now.
It seems since 2017 New York billboard companies might have loosed up a bit, and as long as I sign one of those fancy lawyer letters that says everything is my fault, they’ll take our money and slap the art up on vinyl for the world to see!
We have three billboard options (so far) starting at $12392, then $24,112, and the huge supersized one at $67500 (see pics below)!
If we don’t get a billboard up, all money gets returned. I’m only raising the exact amount that we’re being charged, no extra cash goes in my pocket.
The more we take in, the bigger and better the billboard, but the only way this is going to happen is if everyone chips in a bit, shares, promotes and pesters their friends and family. Especially rich friends and family. Sadly, I mostly know artists, and they’re always broke.
This time, instead of the “Make America Great Again” tagline on the illustration, I wanted to get a little more proactive, and switched it up to “VOTE!”.
Since about $1,000,000,000,000 (rough guess) is spent on political advertising that isn’t going to change anyones mind, why not take a little tiny itty bit of that and at least have fun?!
Who’s with me? Go Team!!
We’ve got 30 days!
If you’ve got an itch for more M.O’C art, please check me out @ https://www.instagram.com/mitchoconnellart/
And to purchase any of my Trump themed tee’s, take a peek at my Threadless shop https://mitchoconnell.threadless.com/
All of my earnings (about 25% of retail) will go toward the billboard fund!
And for some previous stories about the art-
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| https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-times-square-039they-live039-trump-billboard |
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| https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-times-square-039they-live039-trump-billboard |
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| https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-times-square-039they-live039-trump-billboard |
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When the first billboard went up in Mexico City I got quite a bit of helpful feedback and constructive criticism.
An option for you though, if you don’t have an interest in making new friends, is to just contribute anonymously. :-)
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| A couple years back, my then 3 year old son Aiden paid tribute to the star of 'They Live', Rowdy Roddy Piper at the Flashback Weeked costume contest! For the whole fun story (and plenty more pics)- https://mitchoconnell.blogspot.com/2017/10/aiden-oconnell-as-rowdy-roddy-piper-on.html |
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