[clue] [advice]

[Bruce Ediger]

Hi.  I'm looking to do one of those "joke" federal agency seals.
You know, like an NSA seal modified to have parts of it "redacted".

For my particular joke, the FBI logo is almost perfect.  But...

One of the things I want to do to it is change the agency name.  I can
rearrange the letters of "FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION" into my joke
agency name. That agency name appears going around the seal image in a
circle.  The 'F' in "FEDERAL" appears at about 9 o'clock on the seal,
and the 'N' ending "INVESTIGATION" appears just before 3 o'clock.

I need a graphics editor that can cut letters out of the curved
image of "FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION", and rotate them so
I can make the agency name some punny thing.

What's the easiest to learn program to do this type of editing?
I'm a total beginner, no graphics design experience at all.
Naturally, I need a Linux program, as that's all I have running
at home, Arch and Slackware. And DD-WRT, but I wouldn't do this on
my wireless router.