Firas Alkhateeb Is Obama Joker Poster Artist

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Firas Alkhateeb created the now infamous poster of Barack Obama with make-up like the Joker in Batman - The Dark Knight, famously played by Heath Ledger. The 20-year-old history major at Univeristy of Illinois told Los Angeles Times that he downloaded the image of Obama from Time Magazine, and used a tutorial he found online to add clown make-up to him as a Photoshop project.

Alkhateeb uploaded the finished version of the President to Flickr, where an unknown person found it and added the word "Socialism" as a caption. This person then printed out the poster and distributed it across Los Angeles, where it caused a stir, and many believed it had been created to protest Barack Obama's policies.

Flickr has since removed the image from its website, citing copyright issues. Alkhateeb says he did not mean to make a political statement with the artwork.