LOS ANGELES -- It's 10 o'clock on a Friday night and almost three dozen people have gathered around a table at Canter's Deli on Fairfax to plan a mission. It's the day the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, in a decision that cites a 17th century witch trials judge whose big claim to fame was establishing the idea that a woman can't be raped by her husband.
Standing amid the crowd is Robbie Conal, in striped shirt and baseball cap, holding court. He is, as he puts it, "really pissed off."
Conal has for decades been papering the streets of Los Angeles with political broadsides that decry corruption, hypocrisy, warmongering, homophobia and sexism, rendering their greatest (frequently male) purveyors in grotesque, downright oleaginous ways: crumpled and jowly, with cold, unfeeling glares. These images he frames with biting slogans whose fonts are usually designed by his wife, graphic artist Deborah Ross.
