Where Did This Come From?

We know this image came from somewhere.  Someone made it.  The question is who is he and how do we find him?

Originally, I was going to do a Google Image search.  However, I got some help from Paul St. Denis at the Stony Brook University Teaching Learning Lab after my Digital Rhetoric class went for a class visit.  Through Prof. Davidson, he'd sent me two links.  This is the first one that led me to my destination:

https://www.google.com/search?q=nothinghappenedtoday+pinhead&tbm=isch

It leads to this search results page from Google:

The Black Arrow points to our image

So I clicked the image and it led me here:

 

The URL reads za.pinterest.com.  I tried to find what the difference between this and the regular version of pinterest is, and Googling this was harder than I thought.  I used the prefix for other popular websites like Wikipedia and the home page came up in a language called "Yiebdeauz."  I typed this term into Google and did not get any answers that I understood.  I saw some Asian language characters and I think this might be somewhere in Asia.

I clicked again and the image was on an Instagram for a user name "nothinghappenedtoday" whose real name is apparently Ed Harrington.  

His profile says he draws comics at night and has a link to a store that sells his images.  I went to his website (http://www.neatoshop.com/artist/Ed-Harrington) and there were links to his personal website, his Tumblr, and his Instagram.

Neato Shop

Ed Harrington's Website

I tried to find the Care Bear/Hellraiser image but Ed Harrington is prolific to say the least.  I have contacted Mr. Harrington to see if he is the artist of the image and ask him to talk about his art.  When I hear from him, I'll update this page.  In the meantime, it looks like Mr. Harrington is an expert at this type of art.  Whether it is in the style of an IKEA instruction sheet, He-Man, or Peanuts, he is able to emulate the style of art and add a sense of subversion to each image.  

From Mr. Harrington's website, I found a link to an article from The A.V. Club about his mash-up series of horror icons and IKEA Instructions.  I came to some conclusion about the synergy of elements in the Care Bears/Hellraiser mash-up here.  To sum up, both the Care Bears and Hellraiser series are mirror images in ways that are astounding upon deeper investigation; both series are about other-dimensional beings who wait to be called upon by humans in order to intervene in their lives.  They differ in that Care Bears want to help people and the Cenobites want to kidnap, imprison and torture them.  One franchise is the embodiment of empathy created by a faceless corporation and the other is pure sadistic hedonism created by an artist.

IKEA furniture is supposed to be easy to put together, but when things go wrong, the experience can be a horror show.  As a writer and fellow artist, I know when I make connections, I don't realize the subconscious pull of them until later in the process, but I think Mr. Harrington is operating at a level above just "doing it for the lulz."  He understands that these mash-ups aren't as random as they may seem.  They operate at a level like one would find when putting a gentle soul in Frankenstein's Monster or the lack of a soul in Patrick Bateman.

I would like to say this journey is over, but as Dr. Manhattan said in Watchmen, nothing ever truly ends.  However, here is what I've learned doing this project.