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Celebrities in comic books

post #1 of 48
2/8/09 at 2:19am
Thread Starter 
So I was reading Dark Avengers when I couldn't help but notice Norman Osbourne looked ridiculously like Tommy Lee Jones.

Then I read Invincible Iron Man and he looked like Michael Keaton. Pepper Potts still has that Nicole Kidman thing going on. I haven't figured out which celeb is Tony but he has Tom Selleck's stache.

I don't know about you, but it sorta annoys me. Reading Norman's lines as Tommy Lee Jones just sounds weird. It just makes me think of Batman Forever.

But for some reason, Michael Keaton just seemed like genius.
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post #2 of 48
2/8/09 at 2:21am
There was this strange in-issue mini series where Spider-man and Jay Leno showed up. And then I have this odd comic that features Conan O'Brien in it from the mid 90s.
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post #3 of 48
2/8/09 at 2:23am
David Letterman in Dark Knight Returns
Timothy Dalton as Stark in Marvels
Russell Johnson as Reed Richards in Marvels
Randolph Scott as Superman in Kingdom Come
Gregory Peck as Batman in Kingdom Come
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post #4 of 48
2/8/09 at 2:26am
Freddie Prinze Jr. in the Ultimates
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post #5 of 48
2/8/09 at 2:27am
Wait, is this a thread about celebrity appearances in comics or artists who use celebrities as models for drawing established characters?
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post #6 of 48
2/8/09 at 2:34am
I was going by the examples in the original post. Except Letterman.
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post #7 of 48
2/8/09 at 2:36am
Gotcha. Celebrities in comics catch all.
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post #8 of 48
2/8/09 at 2:45am
Letterman played, well, Letterman in a mid-80s Avengers issue.
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post #9 of 48
2/8/09 at 3:23am
As I mentioned in another thread, Gil Kane based Hal Jordan's appearance off of Paul Newman.

Captain Marvel was based on Fred MacMurray.

Brenda Starr was based on Rita Hayworth.

Spider-Man villain Silvermane was inspired by Boris Karloff.

Funky Flashman was Kirby's dig on Stan Lee.

The greatest example of a celebrity-appearing-as-himself is inarguably Don Rickles in Jack Kirby's Jimmy Olsen comics.
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post #10 of 48
2/8/09 at 3:38am
That's bullshit. Jimmy Carter got better seats than Batman?
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post #11 of 48
2/8/09 at 7:12am
John Byrne based his Beast/Hank McCoy on Al Franken.

The Impossible Man once morphed into Tom Selleck in order to seduce Kitty Pryde. And Remington Steele/Pierce Brosnan once guest-starred in the New Mutants. I guess Chris Claremont was a fan of shitty detective shows in the mid-80s.

There is one eerie panel in BATMAN: RED RAIN where Bruce Wayne looks exactly like Christian Bale. And it was drawn in 1991!
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post #12 of 48
2/8/09 at 9:05am
Let's not forget the issue of Marvel Team-Up where Spider-man joined up with the Not Ready for Prime Time Players.
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post #13 of 48
2/8/09 at 3:09pm
There was an issue of Iron Man Bob Layton drew back in the day where in a couple of the panels Iron Man is talking to a cop (played by Steve Martin). And of course, let's not forget Bill Hicks showing up in Preacher.
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post #14 of 48
2/8/09 at 3:57pm
Greg Land traced a shot of Brad Pitt in "Troy" into Magneto for an issue of Ultimate Fantastic Four.
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post #15 of 48
2/8/09 at 5:32pm
Greg Land traces everything, so every person he draws is based on a celebrity.
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post #16 of 48
2/8/09 at 6:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hundred View Post
Greg Land traces everything, so every person he draws is based on a celebrity.
or Porn Star. He's cribbed a few of those.
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post #17 of 48
2/8/09 at 8:09pm
John Constantine = Sting.
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post #18 of 48
2/8/09 at 9:41pm
WANTED is the best example of the original post. The Killer = Tommy Lee Jones; Fox = Halle Berry; Wesley = Eminem. And its so damn stupid.
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post #19 of 48
2/8/09 at 10:13pm
Tony Harris uses his neighbors for Ex Machina.
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post #20 of 48
2/8/09 at 10:33pm
There's nothing wrong with that. Alex Ross uses models. I was just mentioning it.
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post #21 of 48
2/8/09 at 10:54pm
Not a celebrity but...

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post #22 of 48
2/8/09 at 10:54pm
From Spider-Man: Reign.
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post #23 of 48
2/8/09 at 11:26pm
I can't remember the name of the artist who was doing Justice League back in the Giffen days, but he used Sam Neill as the face model for Maxwell Lord. After reader mail poured in about having caught the resemblance on a cover, he swore he'd never use an actor as a basis for a character's face again. I don't know if he kept to it.

Edit:

Kevin Maguire! As soon as I hit the Save button, it snapped into my head.
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post #24 of 48
2/8/09 at 11:54pm
Doesn't the Ultimates, which featured a scene of the characters sitting around and talking about who would play them in the movie, win this? Although I seem to remember thinking that Banner didn't look at all like Steve Buscemi.
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post #25 of 48
2/9/09 at 5:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Radb707 View Post
I haven't figured out which celeb is Tony but he has Tom Selleck's stache.
Most of the time he looks like Josh Holloway (Sawyer from Lost), but there are more than a few panels where he doesn't. It's the Selleckstache that makes him harder to recognize.

Of course it doesn't help that Larroca is using the same photo-referencing technique that he used on Newuniversal, which is chock full of celebrity lookalikes (Holloway as Kenneth Connell, Bruce Willis as John Tensen, James Cromwell as Philip Voight, Johnny Depp as Leonard Carson, Gandolfini in a cameo as the sheriff, Gene Hackman as Carson's dig foreman. And that's just who I can recognize with a casual flip through of the trade).
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post #26 of 48
2/9/09 at 5:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Troy n View Post
I would argue this is the greatest celebrity appearance in a comic.
I am inclined to agree. Neal Adams' art is just glorious.

P.S. Can't forget (or forgive) the many '80s-rock-star likenesses throughout Sandman.

P.P.S. oops, Slade beat me to it.
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post #27 of 48
2/9/09 at 5:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by RathBandu View Post
Doesn't the Ultimates, which featured a scene of the characters sitting around and talking about who would play them in the movie, win this? Although I seem to remember thinking that Banner didn't look at all like Steve Buscemi.
Outside of the very obvious Samuel L. Jackson, nobody really looked like who they were supposed to.
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post #28 of 48
2/10/09 at 6:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
David Letterman in Dark Knight Returns
Timothy Dalton as Stark in Marvels
Russell Johnson as Reed Richards in Marvels
Randolph Scott as Superman in Kingdom Come
Gregory Peck as Batman in Kingdom Come
Ibn al Xu'ffasch in Kingdom Come looked a lot like Harry Hamlin.
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post #29 of 48
2/10/09 at 6:41pm
He did, but Ross modeled him after Sam Jones from Flash Gordon.
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post #30 of 48
2/12/09 at 10:52pm
Simon Pegg as Wee Hughie- though Ennis and Robertson didn't try to hide it. Pegg wrote something of an introduction for one of the collected issue books.
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post #31 of 48
2/13/09 at 1:00am
Another one: Dracula in the classic 70's 'Tomb of Dracula' series was based on Jack Palance.
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post #32 of 48
2/13/09 at 2:47am
Not so you'd really notice. I just read an old issue of Tomb of Dracula last week, and I'm not seeing it.
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post #33 of 48
2/13/09 at 6:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
Not so you'd really notice. I just read an old issue of Tomb of Dracula last week, and I'm not seeing it.
It's not very obvious, except maybe in certain panels, like some close-ups, or sometimes when Dracula is smiling. Dracula's face is also drawn thinner than Palance's. The likeness gets a touch more prominant in the later half of the series, but still, not obvious. I never noticed it until I read an interview with Gene Colan where he mentioned using Palance as a reference:

Quote:
I knew long before there ever was a TOD script that if I ever had the chance to draw Dracula, I would use Jack Palance. His bone structure is perfect. Serpentine.
Which is why, if you're going to go the "inspired by said actor's likeness" route, it's good to look at how Colan did it with restraint, instead of pasting clearly photo-referenced drawings of Tommy Lee Jones' face onto a character.
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post #34 of 48
2/13/09 at 12:12pm
I posted this in another thread a few weeks back, but Justin Hammer in Iron-Man was clearly based on Peter Cushing.



There was a Star Wars mini a while back (the one where Luke/Mara Jade got married?) where the artist drew the supporting jedi to look like Tommy Lee Jones, Bruce Willis and some others. It actually helped me to tell the characters apart, which is sometimes difficult to do when dealing with a bunch of guys with names that look like keyboard accidents (Ulic Qel Droma, etc.)
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post #35 of 48
2/13/09 at 1:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
Not so you'd really notice. I just read an old issue of Tomb of Dracula last week, and I'm not seeing it.
I think it depended on the inker, but it's really noticeable in some issues. More in the bone structure of the face than anything else.

Quote:
Gene: No, I think Dracula had the edge. First of all, I had a particular actor in mind [for Dracula] that had never played the part, and that was Jack Palance. I figured, "Oh, if there's anyone who can play that role, it would've been him!"

CBA: What did you see Jack Palance in that made you think that?

Gene: Well, I had seen him do Jekyll and Hyde for television, and right there and then I knew that Jack Palance would do the perfect Dracula. He had that cadaverous look, a serpentine look on his face.... And he did play that role, eventually, on television. So, I took him on as a character, and [when drawing Dracula] I'd sit before the television screen with the Polaroid camera, and whenever there'd be a still image of him on the screen, I'd photograph it in different positions, so I could use him. That's how [the Palance look] came about. Dracula never turned out really looking like him—somewhat like him. Maybe I didn't catch the actual essence of him in the beginning... but I think as the years went by—and that's when you really begin to develop a character; you get much, much better at it—it began to evolve into Jack Palance.
It's amusing that Palance eventually did play Dracula for Dan Curtis in 1973:

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post #36 of 48
2/13/09 at 2:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
He did, but Ross modeled him after Sam Jones from Flash Gordon.
Is that info from the absolute edition?
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post #37 of 48
2/13/09 at 2:29pm
I think it was in the back of the TPB. Ross is gay for Sam Jones. In a gay way.
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post #38 of 48
2/13/09 at 10:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Troy n View Post
I would argue this is the greatest celebrity appearance in a comic.
Pshaw. I own this ground-breaking comic...



Quote:
Originally Posted by Dax View Post
The greatest example of a celebrity-appearing-as-himself is inarguably Don Rickles in Jack Kirby's Jimmy Olsen comics.
Word.
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post #39 of 48
2/14/09 at 1:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
I think it depended on the inker, but it's really noticeable in some issues. More in the bone structure of the face than anything else.



It's amusing that Palance eventually did play Dracula for Dan Curtis in 1973.
Yeah, I guess when you look at them side by side, you can see it in the cheekbones. It's unfortunate that the Curtis Dracula was so tepid; Palance might have been an interesting Dracula in a real version.
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post #40 of 48
2/15/09 at 6:22am
Frank Miller looks a lot like That Yellow Bastard.

Man, that is really creepy.
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post #41 of 48
2/15/09 at 1:55pm
I'm not an avid X-Men follower, but I distinctly remember Cyclops (freshly back from the dead, I think) being given a conspicuously post-MI:2 makeover back when the movie had just come out. One cover in particular had him looking extremely like Cruise as he sped along on a motorcycle...
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post #42 of 48
2/16/09 at 12:17pm
Reading Carey and Brubaker's recent X-Men runs, the artists at times make a real effort to have Xavier resemble Stewart.
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post #43 of 48
2/16/09 at 1:36pm
Didn't Bill Hicks appear in Preacher doing his newly-elected President spiel?
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post #44 of 48
2/16/09 at 1:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timothy225 View Post
There was an issue of Iron Man Bob Layton drew back in the day where in a couple of the panels Iron Man is talking to a cop (played by Steve Martin). And of course, let's not forget Bill Hicks showing up in Preacher.
Yessir.

I remember thinking the art was terrible, or that Hicks was just drawn like shit. It's been a while.
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post #45 of 48
2/16/09 at 2:28pm
(Apologies to Tim and Phil. I swear I read the whole thread - must have skim-read that post.)

I dunno, the art wasn't amazing, but I liked a couple of the panels with Hicks, just cos they kinda captured his expressions nicely. All I got.
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post #46 of 48
2/16/09 at 2:34pm
I don't know about that. Steve Dillon can only draw male template and female template and then adjusts the look with hairstyles and accessories.

And I love the Ennis/Dillon team for the most part.
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post #47 of 48
2/16/09 at 8:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by C.Swicegood View Post
I don't know about that. Steve Dillon can only draw male template and female template and then adjusts the look with hairstyles and accessories.
To be fair, this describes about half of the artists who've been working in comics since the 80's. I remember being happy to hear that John Byrne knew he had that problem, and was working on changing it (this was many, many years ago). Most don't seem to give a shit.
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post #48 of 48
2/17/09 at 12:52am
Almost every panel from Image

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