Remade paintings? Check. Puns? Likewise. Awkward situations made funny? Yes. Makes you laugh? You bet!
Wilhelm Staehl’s Stars and Swipes and Hugs and Misses both use old images with new silhouettes carefully cut out and new punchlines added to make something new that makes light of awkward moments and gently mocks revered favorites.
Stars and Swipes: 30 Postcards of Awkward Americana is full of lofty sentiments undermined by the second speaker, forgotten moments in the past (The Boston Terrier Tea Party, anyone?), puns (Those you’ll have to see to understand), and strange moments (Why can’t the Statue of Liberty get a cab?). I was laughing from the moment I opened the book.
Hugs and Misses: 30 Postcards of Awkward Romance laughs with us at our romantic notions. There are more puns, of course, and oddities, and unexpected moments abound: A woman dates the invisible man, chameleons have relationship difficulties, and swans trade compliments as the pages progress and the reader chuckles.
These postcards are printed from Wilhelm Staehle’s Silhouette Masterpiece Theater silhouettemasterpiecetheater.com. They are compact books, loosely bound as proper postcard books, kept in their own wrapp-around case. In theory, anyone who wants to can tear out individual cards to send to friends in order to share the joy. It does seem a shame, though, to separate them. Two copies, perhaps?
Hugs and Misses and Stars and Swipes come out on December 3rd from Quirk Books, just in time for the holidays.
Sample images courtesy of Quirk Books, used by permission:
