Want to Publicly Display Your Love for a Certain Film? Not Cool Might Have a Sticker for That.

Of all Lady Gaga’s colossal onstage moments in 2018′s A Star Is Born, no scene pops quite like Ally stretching her vocal cords, widening her eyes and changing her life to “Shallow.”

Fittingly enough, that scene also marked the moment Ethan Kroll’s artistic trajectory shifted. He’d been screen printing stickers in Portland since 2012, but had never considered illustrating movie characters, despite a lifelong case of cinephilia.

On that day in early 2019, Kroll whipped out his iPad, fired up a digital illustration app, and drew Gaga’s iconic moment of arrival. Some positive Instagram feedback kicked off a wave that led Kroll—who goes by “Not Cool”—to begin producing movie sticker packs, designing posters and logos for Cinemagic and even guest-curating screenings at the Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard theater.

“I had no idea any of this was going to happen,” Kroll says. “It’s been a really cool process. I definitely do feel like a part of [Cinemagic] now, which is cool.”

Whether they depict Nicolas Cage wildly gesticulating or Joaquin Phoenix with a thousand-yard stare, Not Cool’s movie stickers are affixed to street signs, water bottles and theater lobbies all over Portland. Kroll says his aesthetic choices often stem from the limitations of screen printing colors, all while playing with textures and dimensions for a graphic effect that differentiates the images from photo-real copies.

Moreover, in the nearly one year since longtime employees Ryan Frakes and Nicholas Kuechler took ownership of Cinemagic, Not Cool’s illustrations have essentially become a house style on posters for the theater’s Provoke Fest, VHS Nights and specialty screenings. Kuechler says Kroll’s genuine movie appreciation makes his artwork an ideal fit for the theater.

“He’s got great ideas for picking iconic images from movies and not always the stuff you’re used to seeing,” Kuechler says. “Even when the person is too small to identify the features of the actor, you know what movie it’s from.”

While Not Cool’s Paul Thomas Anderson sticker collection is currently available for purchase online, and Cinemagic plans to eventually sell Not Cool merch at the theater, Kroll says hawking stickers isn’t the end game.

“I would rather give them to somebody who’s going to appreciate it,” he says. “If I get a little money every once in a while, that’s fine.”