Homages to Vanity Fair (Aug, 1991) in chronological order. But first, the original...
Vanity Fair (August, 1991)
I don't generally follow the goings on of celebrities as much as I did when I was a teenager, and even then it wasn't all that much. I have always been fascinated at what gets certain things started though. This Vanity Fair cover got something started in a big way.
In August, 1991, when this came out, it was considered quite controversial. People talked about the beauty of it, the art of it, the naturalness of it, the morality of it, and yeah, about the nudity of it.
They kept talking until it inevitably became a joke, and as you'll soon see, one of the first to reproduce this image was a poster for the movie Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. From there, it just seemed to to open the floodgates. I found pregnant celebrities in various states of dress and undress on a variety of magazines (thanks largely to this article on thebump.com [thanks Google]), and some of them will surprise you. This is one of those things that has influenced not just comics, but entertainment culture in general, and here's the images to prove it:
Gallery
Gallery
Gallery
In order shown, the pics are:
(Aug 1991)Vanity Fair - Demi Moore.
(Mar 18, 1994) Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult starring Leslie Nielsen. The movie was March, 1994. The poster was likely months earlier.
(Jun 1999) W - Cindy Crawford.
(Apr 2003)Vogue - Brooke Shields.
(Jun 2004) W - Gwyneth Paltrow.
(Fall 2005) Vitals Woman - Heidi Klum.
(Sep 2005) i-D - Liya Kebede.
(Aug 2006) Harper's Bazaar - Britney Spears.
(Nov 2007) Pregnancy - Elisabeth Hasselback.
(Jan 2008) Marie Claire - Christina Aguilera. This blue logo version seems to be the mass market version.
(Jan 2008) Marie Claire - Christina Aguilera. The purple logo is apparently exclusive to Summit Hotels, judging by the mark above the barcode. I assume it's the same sort of thing as a Retailer Exclusive Variant in comics.
(Feb 2008) InStyle - Halle Berry.
(Mar 2008) People - Tori Spelling.
(Nov 2008) Page Six Magazine - Rebecca Romijn.
(Sep 2009) Us Weekly - Kendra Wilkinson and Kourtney Kardashian.
(Mar 2010) Vanity Fair Italy - Monica Bellucci.
(May 2010) Ebony - Paula Patton, cover 1 of 2.
(May 2010) Ebony - Paula Patton, cover 2 of 2.
(Jun 2010) Vogue - Claudia Schiffer.
(Nov 2010) Hello! Canada - Celine Dion.
(Mar 2011) Hollywood Reporter - Rachel Zoe.
(Apr 2011) Life and Style Weekly - Mariah Carey.
(Aug 2011) Latina - Jessica Alba.
(Oct 3, 2011) New York - Maye Musk, age 63, mother of Elon Musk. An article I ran across said this was probably the most controversial "Demi pose" cover since Demi herself, because of the health risk to someone Ms. Musk's age. It apparently sparked some debate.
(Nov 2011) Ebony - Nia Long.
(Apr 2012) Elle - Jessica Simpson.
(Jul 2013) ESPN: The Magazine - Kerri Walsh.
(May 2014) Marie Claire Austrailia - Megan Gale.
(Jun 2016) Bergedorfer Bier ad spoof. In case you can't see the tagline at the bottom right, it says, "Brewed With Love."
(Aug 2017) Vanity Fair - Serena Williams.
As you can see, it starts to trickle off in 2012, but the pregnant celebrity cover is still around as late as August, 2017. Let's see how it fares in comics.
(12/91) Quasar #29.(This is only four months after the Vanity Fair issue- three months if you account for the fact that most issue cover dates are a month ahead. This and Sensational She-Hulk #34 came out the same month, and they may be the first instances of spoofing/parodying/paying homage to the cover)
