Dissect My Brain SPECIAL #1: "The Insult that Made a Killer Out of Kev."

I originally wasn't going to put this one up on the blog being as I drew this specifically with the intentions as a gift for a friend, but I was requested politely by people to talk about it. I figured it would be good filler to hold over in the summer as I patiently wait to launch Dissect My Brain Season Three in a few months.

So here it is: "The Insult That Made a Killer Out of Kev."

I drew this one for a friend named Joe, who ended up being the Joe Flextime character in this comic. He's an aspiring comics writer (he's even had his work solicited, which is more than I can say for myself,) and when we were discussing works that we loved, he was nice enough to loan me a copy of Grant Morrison's Flex Mentallo. I'm not too familiar with Grant Morrison's work other than his Batman stuff, which I liked, but I didn't quite love. However, I will admit that reading Flex Mentallo has converted me to be a fan of his work. I don't quite feel that Flex Mentallo is a work for everyone, but I think if you're into comics and you want to read something that will seriously make you think, this book can do no wrong.

So where does this come in? Flex Mentallo's titular character is verbatim a parody of the character from the iconic piece of Americana: Charlie Atlas' "The Insult that Made a Man Out of Mac." I suppose it's easier if I just show you this:

This is a classic advertisement that had spawn many parodies. In fact, I wasn't aware of the original Charlie Atlas advertisement until I had researched that Flex Mentallo's main character is supposed to be the "Mac" from this comic. However, despite this, I was in some way familiar in with this comic. Marvel's comedy book "What The-?" had spoofed this with "The Insult That Made a Mac a Bloodsucking Freak." I read that comic as a kid in the 90's, and knew that it was some sort of parody of a golden age advertisement. I mean, this is the sort of simplistic, anti-bullying ad campaign is the kind of stuff that serves as a period piece. There's no way you would see an advertisement like this today.

I pretty much re-did this comic, but replaced Charlie Atlas with my friend. I gave him the last name of "Flextime," as a nod a similar advertisement, bodybuilding mogul from a short film I did called "Who's Gotta Door, Bro?" As for the comic itself, I gave the basic story the Kevin Ng spin. It's always been interesting to me that "The Insult that Made a Man Out of Mac" was a true story for Charlie Atlas, being as I can say that "The Insult that Made a Killer Out of Kev" is somewhat of a true story for me. There have been times in my life where I had been pushed too far, and I resulted to violence. However, what happened to me in the end is much like what happens in this comic. I do not become the "hero of the beach," but rather people look at me as the "psycho of the beach."

It's true what they say: "violence doesn't solve everything." It's not like the movies at all. Take Back to the Future for example. Nerdy George McFly decks out the bully Biff Tannen, and gets recommended that he run for class president of the high school. In real life, that George would probably be doing some hard time in prison.