A Times Square 'They Live' Trump Billboard!
Thank you for visiting the Trump Billboard GoFundMe page via Trumpbillboard.com!
Feburary 4th UPDATE!!
The billboard is back up at the same location of 7th and 48th ave in Times Square for all of February! The fundraiser is still collecting to cover those costs, plus, if we exceed the goal, it might get to be on display even longer! Thank you all for your help, and if you find this as fun as I do, please keep on chipping in! :-)
And now the backstory...
Our ‘street art’ goal? To have this ‘VOTE’ image erected on as many billboards as possible! Since I’m an ‘artist’ you know I don’t have the cash money to do this all myself, so I’m reaching out to you, like minded folks who might find this an amusing way to spend your money. Political advertising is effective, mostly effective at giving people a headache, so this is meant a light hearted break from that migraine misery.
If it does have a goal, I only hope that the word “VOTE” seeps into the brains of passerbys, so if they’re only 99% there, this might add that remaining 1% of motivation to get to that pollbooth.
So far we’ve raised enough for a whole month, starting September 30th, to have the Trump/They Live billboard displayed on the corner of 7th Ave. and West 48th!
If the new goal of $16,642 is reached by October 26th, we can get an additional 4 weeks! And if there's a groundswell of contributions, we can even go for bigger billboards! For example, some of those super-sized prime Times Square locations cost $50,000 or more!
No matter what we take in I promise to get the best bang for those billboard bucks.
Plus, don’t worry about personal reprisals from the Trump government when you contribute and spread the news. As part of my contract (I believe this is the rule when you get filed under political advertising), I had to put "PAID FOR BY MITCHOCONNELL.COM” in big block letters so all the haters know exactly who to be pissed at!
Now the mildly interesting exciting backstory...
I originally drew this 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 the 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 my little drawing table television. I became transfixed by the Trump hair, rubbed my chin and thought, “Why not?”
And out popped this parody!
Since then the art has just taken off on it’s own! I’ve seen it tattooed, painted on buildings, on protest signs and bootlegged on anything and everything.
The reasons?
49% because of love of ‘They Live’, 49% because of folks reaction to Donald Trump, and 2% because I did a good job drawing it!
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!
It seems since then the New York billboard companies 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 big ’n pretty for the whole wide world to see!
AND!
If you’ve got an itch for more M.O’C art, please check me out @ https://www.instagram.com/mitchoconnellart/
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!
"VOTE” Stickers are available!
Giant sized 5.5 by 7” full color matte 70lb vinyl paper. Great quality fade resistant campaign stickers that adhere on any surface! Get TEN for just $10! 100% of the sales goes toward the billboard fund!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/705321606/vote
Previous stories about the art-
The billboard in Mexico City-
https://mitchoconnell.blogspot.com/2017/07/too-hot-for-america-only-mexico-city.html
The They Live art wins UK's 'Magazine Cover of the Year'-
https://mitchoconnell.blogspot.com/2017/11/best-magazine-cover-of-year.html
My blog about this project, loaded with more pics-
https://www.etsy.com/listing/705321606/vote https://mitchoconnell.blogspot.com/2019/08/going-for-second-trump-they-live.html
A couple years back, my then 3 year old son Aiden paid a Halloween tribute to the superstar of 'They Live',
Rowdy Roddy Piper-
https://mitchoconnell.blogspot.com/2017/10/aiden-oconnell-as-rowdy-roddy-piper-on.html
I'll be collecting the most interesting (aka angry) feedback here-
https://mitchoconnell.blogspot.com/2019/08/everyone-loves-trumpthey-live-billboard.html 