Charles Atlas's comic book ad - that promised to make any 98-pound weakling able to punch people in the face and get away with it - has got to be one of the most parodied comic book ad of all time. Perhaps it's because the ad is mostly in comic form, or its ostentatious essence, but whatever the reason, a Google search will reveal parodies almost too numerous to count. The famous bodybuilder must have made a killing from putting ads in comic books, because the ad below, or something similar, graced the pages of comics for years on end:
It was only a matter of time, then, as a lover of old comic book ads and a creator in some sense, that I put together my own version, which you can see at the very top of this post. I hope to get this ad in a monster comic that I've been contributing to, which explains the theme of my parody.
Art on this beauty comes from a familiar source - fellow Teddy and the Yeti creator Duane Redhead, proving that he is a man of many styles and many talents. Duane put this together in no time at all and he captured the feel of the original ad like few other parodies have. Rafer Roberts - he of the Magic Bullet publication - is graciously coloring this short piece, which I'll show off when the time is right. I'm fumbling my way through lettering, trying to sufficiently capture the older style you see in the original ad - I'm attempting to hand draw the balloons, which will probably be a horrible failure, but I've got my fingers crossed on that front.
You may recognize the monster in the top image as the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and while that monster is 100% fit for this parody, Duane went ahead and made some tweaks to the design to avoid any pesky lawsuits (I'm unsure that we couldn't have used the character as we're putting together an obvious parody, but whatever). The redesign is below, and it looks like Duane added some great Dr. Zoidberg elements to the monster this time around. "Who's intimidating who now, Big City?"
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