Greg Petre - Santos Sisters Hostess ad parody

One day, while strolling the aisles of Heroes Con, Dan H discovered a pair of talented creators. What happened next changed his life forever...

That might be laying it on a little thick, but it did result in a fantastic commission. When I learned that Greg Petre (the artist half of Greg & Fake) was appearing at Heroes 2024, I made it a point to drop by his table where I met both him and Marc Kopinarov (one of the behind-the-scenes people helping make the Santos Sisters happen). I was interested in having Greg take a swing at my ongoing Hostess ad parody project. Between the fun, light-hearted feel of the Santos Sisters and Greg's very clean approach to panel layout and his Archie comics-inspired line-work, he seemed like a natural fit for the project.

He was interested in tackling the idea, but with the responsibilities of keeping the Santos Sisters on its not-quite quarterly schedule, it was a matter of squeezing it into his workflow. Fortunately, earlier this year as the team wrapped up issue 8, Fake (the primary writer on Santos Sisters) put together the script for this piece and Greg was able to begin working on it, finishing it up after his work on issue 9 was complete. During our discussions, Greg asked if I would be okay with them actually using a Hostess product for the piece. The other artists I have worked with have all used parody products, so I was thrilled that they wanted to use bona fide Twinkies for their take (even including a great rendition of Twinkie the Kid on the package in the final panel).

Greg is not only a great cartoonist, but he is also dedicated to what you might call the craft of composing a comic page. This is evident in the artwork for Santos Sisters, but it was great getting a behind-the-scenes peek at his process. To say he puts thought and care into creating a page would be putting it mildly. And even though Greg and Fake use digital lettering for the published comics, Greg dusted off the Ames lettering guide, ordered some nibs, and tackled this one by hand. I dare say Todd Klein himself would think that Greg had been working on his lettering for years.

The finished page exceeded my greatest hopes and it would be hard to overstate how happy I was with the final results of his hard work. The only downside with having a running theme to commissions is that eventually someone does such a great job with the idea that the only option you seem to have is to retire it and move on to something new. I'm hoping G&F might be able to do a follow up with the girls in costume next year, but until then this one is going to be hard to beat.