Perhaps while surfing online, you’ve come across some amazingly campy magazine cover, or album cover, maybe it was a pulp book from a long-ago celeb and couldn’t believe it existed…
Well, that’s because it probably doesn’t, except in the work of graphic artist Cris Shapan.
I highly recommend following Shapan’s Facebook Page where he regularly posts this stuff, as well as his Funny Or Die page.
The style of humor reminds me a lot of Drew Friedman, who loves to pick out his favorite childhood celebrities and illustrate them all too realistically in bizarre settings. Check out “Jimmy Durante Boffs Young Starlets” for example.
I’m surprised he doesn’t maintain some sort of regular website containing all this stuff, it looks like he’s content to use Facebook. My other theory is that this guy clearly gets his jollies posting this stuff & then kicking back to watch people repost it thinking it’s real. Shapan’s handle on the recognizable & realistic graphic designs of the stuff he’s goofing on from yesteryear is amazing. The colors, fonts, details of wear & tear, etc. are absolutely wonderful. Look at the wax paper lighting effects on that Avery Schreiber bubble gum pack (I wish I had one of those!) giving it real texture and depth. Great stuff.
Nice to see he gets work in Hollywood, hopefully they’ll let him apply his comedy genius somewhere.
“They don’t write like that anymore…” – Greg Kihn
UPDATE:
Welcome to all the B3TA people who found this post on your board!
Feel free to look around the rest of this blog. Check out the topic menu. Or just keep scrolling & enjoy. Lots of film & TV articles on everything from film noir to Punk Rock Quincy to The Oscar, cat pictures, stupid jokes, you name it.
And MOST DEFINITELY click on the “Buy My Books” tab and check out my comic detective novels on Amazon. Help feed me, or so help me God, I’ll summon the spirits of Karl Malden and George Kennedy to wreck YOUR toilet. You’ve been warned.
Jim Berkin 
Thank you for giving my friend the credit he deserves. Most people just re-post Cris’s stuff and everyone assumes it was created by them. Not cool.
You’re welcome! Although he’s got to be enjoying when people see reposts of his stuff and think it’s real.