These posters have been spotted across the country in recent weeks, but according to the creator's website, Frightening Prospect, they've yet to show up in Los Angeles (or at least no one's snapped photos yet). What gives? You can download 18" x 24" wheatpaste poster template at the website. Get to work!

That said, we truly dig the ObamaMan posters that have been showing up for the past month.

Taken in July driving North on the 14. Had there been more time, we could have stopped and gotten a lot more shots - and clearer ones too. Alas, these were taken while zipping along at 70 or so.

More after the jump. All photos by Mark Mauer.

And Barack Obama on Washington Blvd... a few blocks before the 10 underpass I think.

All photos by Mark Mauer

At the time I took these, some genius had decided to splash black gunk all over one section of this cool piece painted on a wooden fence in Hollywood. Much of it had been removed though and it still looks good.

Also as many of Lurker's readers are no doubt aware, there is a large-scale crackdown going on against graffiti artists, and some of the cases against the writers are using YouTube clips as evidence. Therefore, unfortunately, we're not going to be using names anymore on Lurker -- not real names, not writer names.

If we're talking about work that is appearing in galleries, we will still use the names, but no longer can we do it for street art, even if it's been commissioned by the owner of the property.

We just don't want to take the chance that something on this blog might actually be used against an artist in court.

As usual, more photos after the jump. All photos by Mark Mauer.

Before it disappeared tags had gone up all over it. Everyone knew it was coming down, so most of this seems like "practice" for lack of another word (and there might very well be other words that are more appropriate, like "creative expression").

Still, there were a few interesting tags, like this wide-lettered "B M" along on the top of a shell.

The whole thing was like watching a film of urban decay playing in fast forward. Every day there were more tags and yet fewer walls.

Now the destruction of the old buildings has been completed, and it's just an ugly, empty lot. Dirt. Across the street sits the weird, new freighter-like public school, dry-docked into the wedge of Temple, Virgil, Silver Lake and Beverly.

No great artistic statements here. But interesting anyway.

More after the jump.
Photos by Mark Mauer

When Timothy Norris isn't shooting pictures of Gnarls Barkley, or airplanes that go into outer space for LA Weekly and other places, he sometimes comes across cool graffiti in L.A.

(Photos by Timothy Norris)

Oh what's that you say? It's happening already? So it is... This fine piece by Cahce, Makatron and EyeOne on Heliotrope and Melrose was recently painted over. Metroblogging LA has the whole sad, dumb story.

(Photos by Mark Mauer)

Sean Bonner took this picture of what it looks like now:

(Photo by Sean Bonner)

Expect more of this. See more photos from what it looked like six months ago on Lurker here. And be sure to read the comments thread at Metroblogging to catch up on the story.

This wall was a jumble of tags and terrible stuff until Augor and Nekst got a hold of it.

So hey - it looks like L.A. graffiti is now a national story, and pretty much every commenter on the LA Times website wants every street artist locked up or shot.

Read it here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-graffiti31-2008jul31,0,5228059.story

It's ludicrous. But it looks like the comments for the story have been taken down.

Also here:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i_8TdtT-dKmt79vgyJLuWwP4a6hwD929LGMO4

and here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_10073352

SANTA ROSA — Graffiti tends to tick people off, but for John Rose it goes much deeper.

The Aussie bird-dogs it everywhere his eyes land — on soundwalls, traffic signs, the side of a building far across a shopping center parking lot.

"I cannot go anywhere without seeing graffiti. It's an illness. It's incurable," he said. "I hate graffiti with a vengeance. I'll do anything to get rid of this waste of time and blight that's devaluing our properties."

Just substitute the word billboard or advertisement for the word graffiti in the story above, and there I am. How many horrible ads are you exposed to every day? They're selling you crap you don't want and don't need and in many cases the billboards themselves are illegal.

So who's worse? Who would you rather fight?

Augor and Revok got one that we posted not long ago here.

Here's another one reworked by Killers of Giants crew:

This one is visible as your cross over the 101 on Western heading south.

A little help on this one? UPDATE: Thanks to Graffhead for identifying this piece by Thor.

Fyre

Photos by Mark Mauer

And thanks again to Graffhead for the link to this video of the Revok/Augor piece being painted (Video by Logan and Keegan)

Augor x Revok x The Dark Knight (video Logan x Keegan) Meatpost.com from Meat Post on Vimeo.

In the second link there's some footage of DAME working on his section of the wall (Retna did much of the rest alsong with AWR and Werc).

Here's what it used to look like:

Then someone splashed the piece with red and white paint.

Dame promised that the mural would be redone, and true to his word, there was a note from him over the weekend to that effect. It's not like it was, but true to the art form, it's morphed, evolved, grown into something else entirely.

He's posted a picture on the Known Gallery website, and I've borrowed it here:

Visit that site to see a larger version of the image as well as a lot more footage of the original process of the work (click 05.08).

Another stunner of a DAME piece I saw on their site is this one from South Korea.

Thanks to Dame for alerting us to the retooled wall, and for going back to it in the first place. The above two photos owned by Dame, and www.knowngallery.com.

Photos by Shelley Leopold.

On Sunset near Parkman. This area has seen a lot of terrible stuff going on, not only with street art but beyond that. See Christine Pelisek's story about Raven for one tragic story that took place across the street from here.

One mural along the underpass of Silver Lake and Sunset was dedicated to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and got terribly defaced a couple of years ago. It's been a mess since then.

So it was nice to see this new work going up on the wall surrounding Jose Roque's long-time auto body business.

One vintage part of the wall is the portrait of "Michelle." It's been on the site for years, and has even popped up in music videos over the years by Joe Strummer and (I think...) The Transplants.

All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

This vibrant, cartoon-like wall located at Mateo and 5th St. (take Sante Fe north from the 10 freeway, turn left on 5th) is a collaborative work done by many well-known graffiti artists including NEO and Mondo. Complete with aliens and spaceships, the wall is a cheery sight to see in an otherwise drab area. The writings seem to pop and bubble off the wall as if they have a life of their own.

These pieces are tucked into a narrow area, so I couldn't find a way to get a large full-size shot of the three pieces together. The dragon is on the outside part of the alley.

All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.