Beau Bo D'Or

The Iraq war is 4 years old and Tim at Bloggerheads is asking people to post anything they put on the web 4 years ago.

Mine was a post on B3TA.com but the image disappeared as I moved servers.

Here is the image (It is not me !):

The photo was sent to me by a war protestor who used my Gap For Kids anti-war poster in a demo in San Francisco.

He and his friends emailed me a couple of weeks prior to the demo asking me if they could use it and if I had a high resolution image for them to use.
They thought it would work quite well in the city which is the home of Gap’s corporate headquarters.

Time to get your skates on to enter this year’s Germ Viral Awards.

I’ll be entering a couple of pics but competition will be tough this year with a greater awareness of the competition and an enlightened decision to encourage art students to enter.

Copyright restrictions are very tough which will exclude a few classics unless the creator is prepared to pay a library for an image’s use (and for each time it is used).
Alternatively, the creator can, using vectors or pixels, paint a likeness of the celeb/politician in question which is what I have done for one of my images.

I think this year’s competition is of immense importance to viral work, even greater than last year’s as I think this will signify the legitimacy and maturity of the viral medium from what is seen by some as a purely tits and ass medium to one that can convey serious messages as well as humour.

When Brian Sewell slagged of virals in The Independent as having “no intellectual foundation and being feeble rubbish.”, I believe he had only been exposed to the tits and ass virals that dominate some of the ‘top viral’ charts.

However, the word ‘viral’ is about the distribution of whatever someone wants to create and not about the content.
Brian Sewell’s generic attack on the viral medium is the same as him slagging off a gallery wall after seeing a painting he didn’t like.

Enter the Channel 4/Boreme.com viral competition here – Link.

I mentioned in a small interview for Channel 4’s website my respect for ‘traditional’ cartoonists and make the point that they have a greater creative freedom than those who may manipulate images.
The only reason that some ‘traditional’ cartoonists do not have a greater audience than they already have may be their reluctance to embrace the internet as a method of getting their work seen.
Some of this can be explained by inertia but, another key factor may be the creator’s belief that (frequently) an image needs to appear in the correct environment for it to resonate properly.
However, once a receptive audience becomes aware of a cartoonist’s work, that sympathetic environment can exist in one’s head. You don’t always need relevant editorial to frame the picture.

It may spell the death for aspiring viral creators like me, but it is good to see that some acknowledged traditional media talent have taken to the net as Morten Morland has done. – Link.
Edit – and also Matt Buck – Hack link to blog.
He also has his own website with an overview of his creative process as well as a portfolio. I previously mentioned that this site (not his blog) was a bit slow but it is fine now.

I don’t see any reason they can’t decimate the opposition by entering the Germ competition, not for the prizes, but to increase awareness of their work and that of the medium.