So a big part of this blog is supposed to be comic book stuff. And next week I plan to put up some major “pieces” featuring topics that have been on my mind for a while. To kick things off though I’m going to write about an odd little thing I’ve been noticing in comic books lately. Taking famous people and sticking their faces into stories.

I think in most cases its actually accidental. Artist start drawing and a character ends up looking like somebody who happens to be a well known person. Let’s look at some examples.

The new Norman Osborn, AKA Green Goblin-looking a lot like Tommy Lee Jones.

Earl, Joy and Crab man from My Name is Earl

Some new character who’s bossing around Iron Man, looks like Laurence Fishburne to me.

This one from the Marvel Ultimates is kind of funny because not only does he look like Samuel L. Jackson the character actually says that’s who shouls play him in the movie version-which I believe is happening.

Here’s Peter Lorre making an appearance in a special 65th Anniversary edition of Captain America, set in WWII. It’s pretty well known that he was a German, but not so well known that he was Jew. So he got the hell out of Germany in 1933.

Now this one is a little more obscure. It’s Bruce Wayne (Batman) undercover in a disguise. But he Looks like Tony Clifton! So who that hell is that? This is the funny part; Andy Kaufman from the TV show Taxi would go undercover in a disguise to do comedy as a terrible lounge comic.

And yeah, I do know lot about showbiz stuff. But in this case I happen to know this fact, because I was in the movie version of this story. I played this guy.

Sometimes these artists just draw whatever comes to mind, however, sometimes they DO intentionally toss a famous person into the mix. Here’s Bruce Campbell in an Army of Darkness vs Zombies comic. Where they actually just comic bookafied him.

And I think you recognize these guys who recently showed up running from Sinsestro.

And a third and very rare situation is what can only be called a “comic book shoutout.” Here Kevin Rose, creator of the web portal DIGG and the corresponding Web Show Diggnation was actually told he was going to be put on a Captain America cover and it happened.