The Insult

The story of Mac, the beachgoing weakling who gets sand kicked in his face by a bully and seeks revenge via body building, has been made famous by countless Charles Atlas ads and, later, parodies. This webcomic recycles the iconic art from “The Insult That Made a Man Out of ‘Mac’!” over and over again, with the dialogue altered to give Mac new goals. The insult now inspires Mac to become a prop comedian (“I’ll smash your head like a watermelon!”), a vinyl collector (“This is what you get for selling me something from Columbia House!”), and a constitutional originalist (“Let me show you the original meaning—of pain!”). It’s a one-note joke, the kind of comic that reads better as an online serial than in a print collection. But that one note is played well, with Marshall peppering each strip with knowing terminology and in-jokes from Mac’s subculture of the moment. If Mac’s no longer the Hero of the Beach, he may now be the Hero of the Bathroom Read. (BookLife)