Internet Culture

These superb comic book mashups are from the last place you’d expect

SUFFERING SAPPHO, UNLESS I CAN STOP THIS LAMP I’LL DESTROY NEW YORK!

Photo of Lorraine Murphy

Lorraine Murphy

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Let there be light. Well, let there be lamps. And let those lamps be fighting superheroes, starring in movies, and posing in Old Masters portraits. 

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No, stick with me here.

Elite Fixtures, an online lighting-supply company, has a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Pinterest board, a blog, and the usual industrial blog problem: how to make it interesting for consumers who aren’t in the industry, but who might be looking for their products. Corporate blogs are (overgeneralizing only somewhat) a stagnant pit of keyword stuffing, marketing blurbage, and lawyer-approved pablum, an aggregate exactly as attractive as it sounds.

Elite Fixtures and its (nameless) blogger are somewhat more enlightened. They decided to get creative with lamps. Get a little crazy. The results? This June 13 post that takes iconic pop-culture portraits and plops lampshades on their heads. The Beatles crossing Abbey Road. Einstein sticking out his tongue. The Mona Lisa, her smile coyly peeking out from beneath a classic silk shade. And so on.

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The company followed it up with more of the regular “Admire the classic lines of this brass-plated floor lamp” kind of thing—your standard corporate content—until August 22, when it announced a new post: Lamps on Movie Posters. When you lead with Return of the Jedi, how can you lose?

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But the art form did not reach its apotheosis until September 26, when Elite posted no fewer than 10 detailed comic book covers, each featuring a different superhero or team battling… a lamp. 

No, really. Funnier than it sounds. Listen to Wonder Woman exclaim, “SUFFERING SAPPHO, UNLESS I CAN STOP THIS LAMP I’LL DESTROY NEW YORK!” And, really, it’s no weirder than some of DC’s actual plotlines. Who could argue with “HULK vs LAMP—NUFF SAID!”

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There is only one word for this kind of creativity, ladies and gentlemen: brilliant.

Illustrations via EliteFixtures.com

 
The Daily Dot