It bothered me to see Trump's sneer dominating the front page of OEN day after day, it felt debilitating and depressing. And creative problem solving cannot spring from depression.
So I ruminated upon the idea of some alternate symbol which could be used to depict Trump so I wouldn't have to stare into his beady little reverse-raccoon eyes.
Prompted by the frequent references to his presidency as a trainwreck, I researched the most impressive trainwreck photo I could find.
Montparnasse. 1895.
The wiki calls it a "derailment," but I'd call it an epic fail, or at least the Mother of All Derailments From Hell.
Not only that, the symbolism is appropriate: the engineer was recklessly speeding his engine, with apparently little consideration for consequences.
Train wreck at Montparnasse 1895 2
(Image by (From Wikimedia) Unknown author, Author: Unknown author) Details Source DMCA
When the locomotive reached the station, the air brake failed, and due to the lively momentum, the train ran the buffer stop, careened through the station concourse and crashed through the station wall, falling onto the street below. One person was killed, and several injured. The engineer was fined 50 francs.
So I used that public domain image for my quicklink, Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg Granted Immunity In Cohen Probe, here.
Other OEN editors quickly followed suit with trainwreck images to illustrate Trump's failures, and on Sunday our front page sported fewer Trumpish scowls and jowls, and a veritable bouquet of epic train fails.
Editor-in-chief Rob Kall even mentioned it in the Sunday OEN Daily, noting, "We're kind of sick of using photos of Trump, so we're using other images that represent him and what he does and stands for."
By then I was inspired to develop a more specific and humorous image. I found a photo of a cartoon-like reconstruction of the Montparnasse fiasco which had been built at the Mundo a Vapor ("Steam World") theme park in Brazil.
Then I located a great caricature of Trump by the amazing but anonymous Donkey Hotey, who has over a thousand celebrity and political portraits on Flickr, masterful combinations of caricature, photo collage and digital manipulation.
And I mixed it all up with the magic of Photoshop.
The two original images both have Creative Commons licenses. That means that a composite image can be used and shared by others without incurring copyright infringement or a fee. Donkey Hotey does require attribution of the use of his images, so I embedded that information into the picture in order to make it easy for anyone to use or share it.
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