Log onto TapInko.com, a website that operates as a middleman for placing advertisements, click on the state of Alaska, and you’ll see an odd option. Right above the listing for the Northern Light, UAA’s student newspaper, it reads “Billy The Billboard a.k.a. ‘Billy The Kid’.” Click on that and you’ll see a photo of a leg with TapInko’s logo tattooed on it, along with a rate card for ink tattoo advertising on Billy the Billboard. “I will advertise for your company or website on my body in the form of a [sic] alternative advertising, a permanent tattoo,” the text below the photo reads.

Billy Gibby, once an undefeated boxer at the Egan Center’s Thursday Night Fights, was profiled in these pages in February 2008 (“Your ad here,” February 7), after he had a huge “GoldenPalace.com” advertisement tattooed on his back. His goal at the time—which he accomplished—was to fund trips to a San Diego hospital, where he donated one of his kidneys to a woman he’d met online through the living organ donor website MatchingDonors.com.

Slightly more than a year later, Billy the Billboard has accumulated four more tattoo advertisements (none of them through TapInko; he also solicits ads at boxingchampak.wordpress.com and billythehumanbillboard.blogspot.com, and he’s got an auction pending on eBay). He’s angling to be included in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most advertisements tattooed on him.

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Gibby no longer enters the boxing ring—his girlfriend opposes the idea, and at 28 years of age, he’s much more aware of the potential damage that can be inflicted by his competing for $150 in prize money than he was in the past.

Also, he’s not donating any more organs, though he’s tried twice to donate part of his liver to patients in need over the last year. With the first potential donor, the hospital nixed the idea because he’d already donated a kidney. With the second, Gibby says, the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona said the transplant was viable, but after a year or so communicating with the intended recipient, Gibby stopped hearing from him. He assumes the patient died; the transplant coordinator wouldn’t tell him.

No, these days Gibby’s income from his tattoo advertisements doesn’t go to anything quite so philanthropic as organ donations. Now, after being laid off from the post office, with only a pizza delivery job and four kids aged four and younger, Gibby’s just trying to buy diapers.

“If it makes dollars, it makes sense,” Gibby says. “I’ll do it anywhere if the money’s right, if I can help my kids and stuff. I guess I’m like a male prostitute; I sell my body.”

After the Golden Palace tattoo—it’s an online casino site—Gibby scoured the internet looking for more prospective advertisers. He figures he emailed about 50 companies, some of whom expressed interest but had to hold off because of the current economic woes. Some bit though: Viioleteyes.com, an online lingerie retailer, whose website and pinup girl logo are on Gibby’s right forearm and bicep; then NutriAdvice.com, a nutrition website, filled in his left forearm; TapInko.com, the ad middleman, took a chunk of Gibby’s leg; and HostGator.com, a web hosting company, landed on the back of Gibby’s neck. Next up is an advertisement for Chilkoot Charlie’s on his upper left arm; Koots is the first local company to join Gibby’s tapestry of ads.

“We’re all gonna get old anyway,” Gibby explains. “The way I figure is if I can help get my kids diapers and stuff, or pay for things like that, if I live old enough I’m gonna look like shit anyway. Have you ever seen a 100-year-old that looks good? My skin’s gonna be all wrinkly anyway, I might as well do something with it to help my kids now.”

Gibby’s contacted Guinness to find out if there’s a world record for most advertising tattoos and, if there is, how many he needs to break it (it appears there currently is not such a record). This, theoretically, is how his advertisers will get their money’s worth, since Gibby no longer throws down shirtless in the boxing ring. Call it a sign of the times, a startling example of what people will turn to for money when the economy tanks.

Nonetheless, although Gibby says he’s now out of the organ donor business, he still has an altruistic bent. He’s hoping a tattoo artist will donate his skills to get a tattoo of the Alaska Blood Bank logo, which Gibby won’t charge for—he was just awarded his certificate from the blood bank for donating 20 gallons of blood all together so far.

bjk@anchoragepress.com