Everybody loves Raym... Mandy

I'm sure that most of you have seen the Pepsi/iTunes commercials that premiered during the Super Bowl by now. If not, get the over to iFilm and watch a few. Forget the horrible Marvel populated Visa commercial, and ignore the overhyped and only mildly amusing Go Daddy commercials. No, the real breakout star came from the iTunes montages which featured one Mandy Amano, aka That Pepsi Girl.

Of course, the simple fact that she's insanely and intriguingly hot is only part of the appeal. The real reason I'm posting this is because she has more than a little comic book relevancy. Mandy's father is Jeff Amano, an employee of Beckett Comics, and both she and her sister are apparently comic geeks. She was used as reference for a cover of SHI, and is friends with David Mack.

Now, people are always wondering how to market comics to a wider audience - Pepsi and Apple have inadvertently handed some entrepenurial comic company a goldmine. Forget Cindy Margolis - this girl has legit comic fan cred and is in the early stages of true internet and possibly mainstream celebrity. Don't slap her on comic covers in badly photoshopped spandex or have her wear some ill-fitting padded Witchblade outfit at cons. Use her in print ads a la the Milk campaigns, or something. I dunno. It just seems to me that a there's some sort of opportunity here for someone to grab...

- 4colorreview.com