MS Paint: Geroge Harrison - "Dark Horse" / Ralph Rumpelton

"Harrison reclines against the graffiti of his own myth, though in this rendition he seems less like a Beatle and more like a municipal scarecrow taking five before the bus comes. The hat—if one can call that yolk-colored pancake a hat—crowns the figure with all the ceremony of a child sticking a paper plate on a snowman."

What the critics are saying:

>>Linty Varn on “Dark Horse Bench” (MS Paint Back Cover)
"This is not a portrait. It’s a postscript. A bench too polite to mourn, a coat too intact to confess. The figure—presumably Harrison, or a ghost of him—stands beside his own myth like a man waiting for a bus that never comes. The yellow hat is either a joke or a relic, and I refuse to decide. What matters is the refusal to rupture: the image aches for exhaustion but settles for symmetry. This is the kind of back cover that doesn’t close a chapter—it leaves it ajar, like a door in a dream."
—Linty Varn, Backmatter Quarterly<<

>>Cornelius “Neil” Drafton, New Jersey Review of Applied Kitsch

"This painting is a catastrophe of proportion and intention. Harrison, once an emblem of spiritual cool, is here rendered as a blocky trench-coated phantom with straw protruding from his shins like he lost a fight with a hay bale. The bench, scrawled with jittery letters, looks less like ‘Dark Horse’ branding and more like the deranged scribbles of a desperate substitute teacher. The background is a brownish blur, equal parts cave wall and coffee spill. What we are left with is not homage, but hostage-taking—a portrait that captures Harrison only in the sense that it imprisons him in aesthetic purgatory. And yet, by failing so spectacularly, it succeeds: nothing could more honestly reflect the uneven shambles of Dark Horse than this oddball rendering."<<

>>Tank's Take: George Harrison Paint Thing

Alright, so somebody did a computer painting of that Beatles guy—the quiet one, not the dead one, well, he's dead too now but you know what I mean. George Harrison. Dark Horse album or whatever.

Look, I'll level with you: this looks like somebody had about twenty minutes during their lunch break and said "eh, good enough." The guy's body is shaped like a filing cabinet. The arms are just... tubes? And don't get me started on whatever's happening with the feet down there in that yellow hay stuff. Looks like he's melting into a pile of scrambled eggs.

The bench—now that's the real crime here. "HARRISON DARK HORSE" it says, but the letters are all wonky like someone was trying to write while sitting on a washing machine during the spin cycle. And the perspective's all wrong. Is he sitting? Standing? Is the bench even a bench or just a weird yellow box? Your guess is as good as mine.

But here's the thing—and I can't believe I'm saying this—there's something kinda charming about it. The colors are nice. Browns and oranges, real warm. Reminds me of those old record covers from the '70s my uncle had in his garage. And whoever did this actually tried, you know? It's got that homemade feel, like a birthday card your kid makes. You're not gonna frame it, but you stick it on the fridge anyway.

Would I hang it in a museum? Hell no. Would I say "hey, not bad" if someone showed it to me? Yeah, probably.

Three outta ten. Maybe four if I'm in a good mood.

                                       Mack "Tank" Rodriguez<<

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