Like everyone else in the Camel City — beside the haters, that is — Monstercade proprietor Carlos Bocanegra became slightly infatuated with Bartsy. The anonymous tagger has been throwing up hastily drawn images of early-era Bart Simpson on empty walls all over the west side of Winston-Salem. And Bocanegra reserved a space on the side of his building for the artist that had remained blank. Until Tuesday morning.

That’s when neighborhood folks awoke to discover what appears to be a new Bartsy in that coveted space.

It’s different than previous incarnations of the iconic portraits. This one’s actually a Homer, but from that same early “Simpsons” era, leading some to question if it is actually a true Bartsy or perhaps a counterfeit.

The shade of red looks a little off, more pink than that of the original Bartsy palette, and there are discrepancies in shading — the spray lines of the fill-in from this new piece are more visible than in portraits past.

There are similarities in the lines of the lips between this new piece and the others, but differences in the construction of the ears and eyes. And then there’s the lettering.

Only two verified Bartsys have lettering: The “Bart World” on Executive Park Boulevard (Bartsy No. 8 on our interactive map) and the “Eat My Shorts” on Seventh Street (Bartsy No. 3). The new one bears the inscription: “Homey Don’t Play That Naw Mean,” which doesn’t seem to make any sense. Close inspection reveals three different ways of drawing the letter A — a capital in Bartsy 8, a traditional handwritten lowercase a on No. 3 and a third version, the kind with the upper serif, in the new piece.

And so while the body of work increases, the mystery deepens. 

Check out our full gallery and interactive map of all of the other Bartsy’s in town here.

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