For those of you who don’t know who Chris Barker is, he’s a British graphic designer who created a poster honoring the iconic, famous Beatles cover art for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, showing all the celebs who passed away in 2016. This year, he’s done it again.
But this time, it was important for him to reflect on the concerns of 2017. He posted the cover art on his Twitter, writing: “Seems as good any time as any to post this. #sgtpepper2017.” It came to him after Hillary Clinton lost the U.S. election. He sat down and started making a montage that summed up how strange of a year it’s been.
The montage ended up paying a homage to the passing of a number of celebrities. Once he tweeted it out, it was in no time that the image circulated online. Barker told the Star in an email, “This image was never made with publication in mind. It was kind of a cathartic thing for me…”
According to the Star, Barker noted that for the last month, he’s been receiving “lists and lists of international personalities” that he didn’t include in the art. But the photo is by no means exhaustive.
He told the news source, “They keep sending me lists of people I’ve missed. I simply can’t add everyone in the whole world from every walk of life who died this year, really, can I?”
But since he created the art in November, he’s added more and more people who have passed away. Barker said it would’ve felt rude not to include them in this artwork. He noted that people just keep piling on…unfortunately.
So who exactly is included in there? Well, you have Tom Petty, Adam West, Gordon Kaye, Sir Bruce Forsyth, Fats Domino, Sir Roger Moore, Hugh Hefner, and John Hurt and many more.
Of course, some of us might not know who these actors are because we didn’t grow up watching them. For example, Adam West is more known for his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman in the 1960s serial but also for appearing as a voice actor on Family Guy.
Then you have Sir Roger Moore who was an English actor and best known for playing the famous secret agent James Bond in seven feature films from 1973 to 1985. He was and still remains to be an icon.
But events were also featured in the art, which took more of an apocalyptic, climate change theme as there are red skies in the photo as well as flooded waters at the bottom. You also see the Mandalay Bay Hotel in the background as well as the Las Vegas scene associated with the tragic massacre.
The photo also contains Palm Trees that are being blown by multiple hurricanes, portraying the harsh weather we’ve experienced these past few months. It honestly is such a powerful work of art. People were seriously touched by this.
