Shepard Fairey has created a symbol for a generation. He is the guerrilla artist responsible for Barack Obama’s most popular signage, the red, white and blue prints of an inquisitive Obama staring, seemingly into the future, with a different Obama catchphrase inserted at the bottom: Progress, Hope, or Change. The posters have become a revolutionary piece of propaganda, fetching as much as $5,900 on eBay (original price: $45), much to the chagrin of Fairey. They are the most effective pieces of political promotion I have seen in my lifetime and that’s not just because I’m 20. Fairey took the “Change We Can Believe In ‘O,’” and made it everything the graphic designers behind it wanted it to be.

But as we have learned, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, and Fairey’s poster has certainly been imitated. Here is a site that compiled these posters from all over the web to create an online database of the parodies. They seem to get dumber as you scroll, but what you can take from it is how popular the poster is. In the world of parody, success necessitates popularity. There aren’t any Weird Al B-sides, because nobody gets take-offs on obscure things.

Here are two negative parodies for each of the candidates. In the realm of satire, does this really facilitate fits of laughing on the ground? No, but these posters are not made to bring tears to the eyes of most. Just like the original, the parodies do their job of putting a word to a face. It would be interesting to see how many more people relate Hope, Progress and Change to “That One” because of these posters.

Here’s another personal favorite:

Finally, I will point you in the direction of The Obama Art Report. The blogger does a  nice job of covering the sweeping political movement among artists for Obama. Here is a clip he had up of an interview with Shepard Fairey.