Shepard Fairey Propaganda Twofer: Esquire, Time

WHEN WAS THE last time 2 major national magazines put the same artist's work on their covers? (Within weeks, no less.) From neighboring neighborhood Echo Park, artist and designer Shepard Fairey has produced 2 covers featuring President Barack Obama.

Time ran what seems to be an original portrait, the President'slips parted, on its Dec. 29, 2008, issue. But Esquire's February 2009 issue, in mailboxes this week, ran what appears to be the same closed-mouth portrait from Fairey's famous "Hope" campaign poster.

Good for Shepard. How did he swing it? This is surely the final nail in the mainstream-media's-in-the-tank-for-Obama coffin that certain skeptics (sore losers) have been waiting for.