The Asian Celebrity Portrait Painters Empire

You see them on the streets of New York City
You see them at mall kiosks
They're Asian...
And they all have THE SAME DRAWINGS!
WHO ARE THEY!?

It was late 2001 and I was walking the streets of New York city, just a happy tourist walking my beat, I felt like little Bruce Wayne strolling the streets with his parents right before they get shot. This would be my first encounter with what I will call the ‘Asian Celebrity Portrait Artists Association Guild Organization of America‘ or CPAAGOOA for short.
It was a beautiful night and I was strolling streets of NYC with my old man and some other people. As we were heading down the sidewalk we somehow fell prey to the charm of these Asian sidewalk artists. “Do it…it…will…be…fun…”, reluctantly I sat down at their little booth thing which was set up right in front of a retro café near times square. I could see what the people at the window tables were eating. I sat for what seemed like an eternity while I had my picture drawn. This story is not about how the picture ended up making me look like a Dragonball Z character, or how uncomfortable the little hammock chair was. This story is about how over the course of the next three years I encountered even more Asians selling the exact same drawings of American celebrities, two of which I own; Dave Matthews and Jerry Garcia, both posing the same way with their guitars. The pictures are definitely good, but that’s not the point. Who are the original artists and how do they distribute their work on such a broad scale. It’s very similar to the Incan or Mayan pan flute/pipe performers you always see trying to sell their cd’s at local arts festivals, they‘re all selling the same product. From the streets of New York to the Mall of America to right here at the Eastland Mall, they’re everywhere. Hey look! There's a kiosk set up in my backyard. Excellent! It’s that one picture of Tony Montana again, I love that one and apparently they love Scarface too. They also seem to love Bob Marley too and John Wayne and Johnny Depp, in fact, they have all our American icons, including former President Clinton, I think I even saw Paul Reubens and Robert Goulet in there too. I would head over to the local mall to do some Q&A with the local CPAAGOOA dealer, but the guy who works there speaks little to no English, he also doesn't have change for a 50. I also have a feeling that no matter how hard I interrogated, I would get no answers. Nothing short of Jack Bauer style craziness would work. "WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR!?!?!"
So why do I care about this? So what, they sell cheap art prints and make ridiculous profit, so what? Yes, of course, but what if there is something more sinister going on? No seriously. China, North Korea…Eh! Eh? Yeah, you know what I’m getting at…ninjas. Spies. Spy ninjas. Eventually moving their kiosks closer and closer to the capital…white house…pentagon…Langley…oh yeah. We’re in trouble.