France's National Library has photoshopped a cigarette out of a photograph of Jean-Paul Sartre used in a poster to promote the centenary of his birth. The action was apparently taken to comply with a law prohibiting tobacco advertising, and follows the editing out of cigarettes from other likenesses of role models. Perhaps they should edit all those removed cigarettes into images of historical villains like Hitler (or, even better, images of people considered passé and unhip though not enough to be in danger of becoming Ironically Cool). (via bOING bOING)

Posted by: steve | http:// | Sun Mar 13 02:09:56 2005

this has been happening for a while now. several years ago the US postal service commissioned a set of stamps commemorating influential blues musicians. the robert johnson stamp, using one of the few surviving photos of the man, was designed omitting the cigarette that dangles from one side of his mouth in the original photo.

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