Affectionate Parody / Comic Books

• Lucky Luke, by Morris and (most of it) René Goscinny is an affectionate parody of just about everything one can find in the Western genre.
• While Alan Moore's Miracleman and Watchmen were dark deconstructions of the Super Hero genre, his later 1963 is an affectionate parody of the Silver Age.
  • The same could be said of his run on Supreme which used many goofy Silver Age-style ideas and stories. Extra points for the fact Moore also made a parody of a parody, taking the MAD Superman parody Superduperman and writing one based on Supreme, who himself is a Superman analogue.
  • 1963 is an Affectionate Parody of the stories and characters of the Silver Age, but more of a pointed Take That! to the creators behind them, with the letters pages implying that "Affable" Al Moore (Moore's fictionalised version of himself within the 1963 universe and a clear take-off of "Smilin'" Stan Lee) is an egotistical tyrant who shamelessly takes credit for the achievements of others.
• Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade is an affectionate parody of the Silver Age of Comics. Supergirl is a massive weirdness magnet and her best friend is Mad Science incarnate.
• The Nextwave comic book series.
  It's an absolute distillation of the superhero genre. No plot lines, characters, emotions, nothing whatsoever. It's people posing in the street for no good reason. It is people getting kicked, and then exploding.
• The Assistant Editor's Month frequently created such stories, but perhaps the most affectionate of the lot was "Once an Avenger, Always an Avenger!" (Iron Man #178), a story parodying the current events of the Iron Man comic (as well as Marvel's generally melodramatic writing style), but with an Avengers fan club instead. Complete with images of the Iron Man-cosplaying kid drowning his sorrows in soda after being fired from the team so as to respect the current roster.
• Marvel Comics frequently does this in its own media. One of the most prominent examples is the world of Peter Porker: The Spectacular Spider-Ham, an anthropomorphic animal version of the Marvel Universe. Alternate reality storylines, such as the ones in Excalibur, also included humorous parodies.
  • What makes the Supermegatopia Spider-Ham an affectionate parody of an affectionate parody, apparently, as the SMT take on her is to make her a cute, if slightly plump, girl. The sarcasm is retained, as well as a slight desire to just stay home and watch TV instead.
  • Really, this was the entire point of the What The title, with one issue featuring Man-Thang and Swamp-Thang getting into a largely ineffective fight over who stole whose origin; Frank Casket, the Pulveriser, and his Cloud Cuckoolander war against crime; and Wrillimean, a Wolverine spoof who spoke entirely in "Slice and dice! No quarter! I'm the best at what I do and I ain't pretty!"
  • Mutant Beach Party, a version of a lot of the events of 80s X-Men stories condensed into two parts.
• Little Ego, by Vittorio Giardino, is an erotic parody of Little Nemo. Though the art style was a lot more realistic, it retains the color, odd plot shifts, multi-panels and, of course, the main character waking up in her bed at the end.
• Runaways uses this as well, especially with Victor Mancha, who is programmed to worship in-universe superheroes and often plays straight man to the more smarter of the group.
• Word of God states that Kyle Rayner's stint as Parallax during the Sinestro Corps War was meant to be a parody of Kyle's interactions with Hal Jordan when he was Green Lantern and Hal was Parallax.
• 1982's The Fantastic Four Roast, written and laid out by Fred Hembeck and issue #34 of Marvel's What If...? series (first version), were some of the gut-bustingly funny send-ups drawn straight ever.
• Doug TenNapel's one-shot comic, Solomon Fix, is an affectionate parody of the British. It was inspired by the "fancy Englishmen" TenNapel worked with while making Earthworm Jim.
• MAD magazine was for nearly its entire run defined by its parodies of major TV shows and movies... and real life as well.
• Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters is the first Teenage Mutant Samurai Wombats parody of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• Deadpool as a character tends to be an affectionate parody of the Dark Age of Comics and of stereotypical '90s anti-heroes.
• Wilq is a mix of Superman (capable of flight, wears a cape) and Batman (how he wants to be perceived).
• Inodoro Pereyra, a comicbook from the Argentinian writer "Negro" Fontanarrosa, is an affectionate parody of El Gaucho Martín Fierro.
• Superlópez: In Spain, the Supergroup stories are considered one of the finest parodies of the superhero genre.
• Colt Noble and the Megalords was a one-shot from Image that is this in regards to Masters of the Universe, though very much more "affectionate" than "parody" as it doesn't directly mock any of the elements lifted from He-Man so much as create comical situations around them (such as the characterization of Prince Jaysen/Colt Noble as a horny idiot and Archfiend as the world's worst boyfriend). The continuation in Mini Comics Included did parody one specific element of the original He-Man toyline: namely, the premise behind He-Man impersonator Faker, who has blue skin and orange hair. The Faker equivalent, Duper, is fired by Archfiend because he can change shape but not colors, but ends up fooling Colt's love interest Mareea because she's colorblind.
• Ultimate Adventures is a parody of the Batman franchise, in which the vigilante is a deluded billionaire who relies heavily upon his teenaged sidekick.
• Bongo Comics Radioactive Man parody of 1980s comics, Who Washes the Washmen's Infinite Secrets of Legendary Crossover Knight Wars, is a shining example of how to do this. It is spot-on and obviously written and illustrated by creators who love those comics. Just as importantly, it is very funny - so funny, in fact, that you don't even have to know what they're parodying to enjoy it.
• Largely the point of Planetary, in which each issue explores a skewed version of a particular pop-culture icon through the eyes of the main characters; Japanese kaiju movies one issue, 1960s super-spy thrillers another, and so on. It was often Played for Drama, however, in that while the writers were clearly affectionate towards many of the things they were drawing upon, they were also willing to criticise as well; to illustrate, one issue featured a group of characters clearly based on the Vertigo Comics characters of the 1980s and 1990s, and while one of them passionately champions their political and social relevance and edginess, another bluntly points out that when taken out of that specific set of contexts and appearing in the present day, they can't help but look a bit silly.
• The Adventures of Philip and Francis by Pierre Veys and Nicolas Barral, published by Dargaud, the same publisher as the original books, Blake and Mortimer. Published albums include The Empire Under Threat, The Machiavellian Trap and the (supposedly) upcoming The Yellow "M" vs. Godzilla.
• Wrong Earth pokes fun of Franchise/Batman through the premise of there being two Batman type characters existing in two different universes: Dragonflyman is a parody of Batman (1966) and comes from a campy and at times silly universe, while Dragonfly is a parody of more darker versions of Batman and comes from a brutal and overly violent universe. The premise is that they accidentally swap universes, with much hilarity coming from how both of them react to the worlds they are in. Despite both characters being heavily exaggerated versions of Batman however, they both portrayed as competent crime fighters with plenty of depth to their characters, which makes it clear that this was written as a love letter to the franchise.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began as a Daredevil parody, riffing on Frank Miller's ninja-heavy reinvention of the series in the 1980s. It's since become...quite a bit more than that.
• Age of the Sentry spends a lot of time mocking the foibles of the Superman stories of the 50s and 60s, and plays the idea of a character operating on Silver Age DC rules in the relatively more grounded Silver Age Marvel for all it's worth. However, it also shows a great deal of fondness for those stories, and goes out of its way to match their tone and storytelling, throwing in dozens of little nods to Superman's history. The last issue goes so far as to feature a possible explanation for Sentry's true origin and nature, that is also a barely-veiled argument against DC's attempts to reboot Superman to be more like Marvel or more "realistic", claiming they get rid of what gives the character life.
• Angry Birds Comics: Game Play: Master Pig Theatre: The Strange Case of Minion Jakyll & Mr. Hyde is this to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

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