In honor of New York Fashion Week, Italian designer Michele Moricci drew some weird fanart of 90s cartoon characters (I trust you have Not Forgotten the 90s, citizen) wearing designer fashions, including this somewhat disturbing one of Adult Lisa Simpson wearing an outfit by fashion designer Marc Jacobs:
Last season there was a Simpsons episode where Bart becomes a street artist with the help of special guest star Shephard Fairey, because it’s impossible for a Simpson to develop a new skill without meeting the most famous people associated with that skill. Fairey’s perhaps best known nowadays for making that weird Soviet propaganda-ish Barack Obama “Hope” poster in 2008, but back in “the day” his claim to fame was the OBEY Giant campaign where he’d plaster stickers or spraypaint images of deceased wrestler Andre the Giant (later redesigned to avoid copyright infringement) everywhere – without permission! – with the word “OBEY” under it, which may have provided the inspiration for such cultural touchstones as internet memes and Microsoft advertising. For the episode, The Simpsons cleverly “mashed up” Fairey’s two pieces into a “parody” (using the term very lightly) featuring Homer’s face and the word “Dope.”
Anyway, the Associated Press sued him over the “Hope” poster (apparently they own the rights to Obama’s likeness??) and won. Last September a federal court sentenced him to two years’ probation and fined him $25,000. Now where’s an avant-garde street artist supposed to get scratch like that??
Artist JK Keller created an intense video manipulation of The Simpsons entitled Realigning My Thoughts on Jasper Johns that will break your browser and possibly your mind if you try to watch the whole piece on his website. Here’s the introduction, which gives you a good idea of what the rest is like…
Hey, do you remember when I told you about THIS IS NOT BART, the Simpsons-themed art show currently being held in Newcastle, Australia? Well, a few days ago IN THE NEWS operative “Adam B.” did some reconnaissance and reported back his findings:
I went to the This Is Not Bart art exhibition and talked to the curator and he said they will be making it an annual event , so around september 30 til october 22, 2012 it will be on again.
Yes, it’s going to become a yearly tradition, I guess! Ha ha, so much for Australian culture.
If you happen to be in Newcastle, Australia this month, you might want to consider seeing the THIS IS NOT BART exhibition at the ARThive art gallery. It’s full of weird Simpsons arts, like a dress-up Mr. Burns, paintings inspired by the Planet of the Apes musical, or Snagglepuss. It’ll be like looking at Bomers in real life, with other people! Wow! Full deets are on their website.
If you were one of the people watching The Simpsons last night (sucker), you may have noticed something a little different about the opening sequence!
The “couch gag,” if one could call it that, was storyboarded and directed by the pseudonymous Britain street artist known as Banksy, whose distinctive graffiti has shown up across the UK and the US, and whose work has been auctioned off for millions of dollars to limousine liberal luminaries like Brangelina.
Showrunner-for-life Al Jean told the New York Times he seeked out the ostensibly underground (despite having a publicist) “art terrorist” and asked him, via a series of messengers, if he’d do the opening, later receiving the storyboards without ever meeting the mystery man. Although 5% was cut out by request of Fox Broadcast & Standards, Jean insists the final product was as close as possible to Banksy’s original intention.
The response has been enormous – Banksy became a “Trending Topic” on Twitter last night (which is, like, super-important and stuff) and there are currently hundreds of news stories about it – which I’m sure makes up for the 29% decline in ratings from last week. It’s to quantify these things, but I think it’s safe to presume this will get more attention than other recent Simpsons “viral” stunts, from the godawful Ke$ha thing to the Itchy & Scratchy parody of Koyaanisqatsi (in the old days, The Simpsons usually generated buzz with actual episodes instead of context-free YouTube clips, but I guess that’s the way things are now in the New Media Landscape).
Here is the late, great comics legend Harvey Pekar homerized for his 70th birthday by longtime Simpsons director David Silverman:
Coincidentally, Dan Castellaneta (voice of Homer) portrayed Pekar in a stage adaptation of his long-running comic American Splendor. [SMITH Magazine via Twitter]
From the franchise that brought you disturbing pictures of Marge Simpson in Maxim, here comes some pictures of the Simpsons interacting with caricatures of Canadian supermodel Linda Evangelista and a number of fashion designers in Paris from the August issue of Harper’s Bazaar.
“The Simpsons Go to Paris” depicts the Simpson family wearing outfits straight from the seasons’ high fashion catwalks. The spread also features Simpson-ized versions of supermodel Linda Evangelista and designers like Marc Jacobs and Jean Paul Gaultier.
Just what the hell demographic are they trying to cater to here??? [LiveJournal via TV Squad]
Here’s a pretty generic update on the upcoming movie from the LA Times, with some mildly entertaining new tidbits – the producers seem to advise walking in with low expectations, Groening doesn’t know off-hand how many spikes of hair Bart has, director David Silverman wants it to be as wide as possible. But the real highlight of this article is this delightful Silverman drawing of Homer and Bart being chased by Silverman, Groening, Al Jean and James L. Brooks:
