Wile E. Artist

A Chicago graphic artist has generated $100,000 with a poster of fictional products made by Wile E. Coyote‘s favorite brand, reports Stefanie Cohen in The Wall Street Journal (1/5/13). Rob Loukotka thought it would be cool “to create a poster depicting every nutty item Wile E. Coyote buys from the fictional Acme Corporation … to take out the Road Runner.” So, he “watched each of the Looney Tunes Road Runner cartoons from 1949 to 1994 … and sketched each of the ludicrous Acme items — instant icicle makers, quick-drying cement, tornado kits, dehydrated boulders,” etc.

He then created a “cherry red poster (link) to look like a 1940s mail-order catalog with 126 hand-drawn versions of the fictional items for sale … He listed it on Kickstarter in November, giving himself a month to raise $3,000 for 100 limited-edition screen prints. A day later, he’d met his goal. A month later, he had raised $105,083 and had orders for 3,254 posters.” It’s the “second-most successful graphic-design project on Kickstarter.”

Says Rob: “I’m really excited that other people share the nostalgia I have for this fake company … They make ridiculous products and everyone likes them. They’re a dream factory.” Rob’s own dream-come-true is that the very Acme products that invariably failed for Wile E. Coyote will enable him to build his own art studio, where he “plans to scheme up more prints, furniture and games.” A few extra posters remain available for sale on his site, FringeFocus.com. “I just wanted the poster to exist,” says Rob, “and apparently a lot of other people did, too.”