They Live On — Special Broadcast 1988

Available · one owner only

Archive note

A recovered page from a Sears mail-order catalog advertising a fictional 1988 television premiere. The layout mimics John Carpenter's They Live, with red Chinese characters overlaid on surveillance imagery and a billboard, suggesting an alternate broadcast history in East Asia. The yellow catalog stock and Sears branding locate this artifact in late-80s consumer ephemera, now ambiguous in provenance and intent — a collage that blurs advertising, propaganda, and cult cinema.

$5 One file · one owner · never reissued

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Print specification

11x14in

12x16in

2752 × 1536 px · 4.2 MP · landscape

Section: Broadcast Archives
Style: mail-order catalog insert, black-and-white photography with red typography
Mood: conspiratorial, unsettling, bureaucratic
Palette: cream, black, red

Filed under

they livejohn carpenter1988chinese textsurveillancebillboardsears catalogdystopiantelevisionpropaganda aestheticmail orderalternate broadcast