Original Book

From Homestar Runner Wiki

The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest is the original children's book that started it all. The story is bizarre and has few of the regular characters but showed signs of the greatness to come. The archive includes the story plus some alternate cover ideas.

The Homestar Runner, Pom Pom, Strong Bad, and three others enter the Strongest Man in the World Contest. "Whoever holds the most grapes, wins." Strong Bad cheats with the help of The Cheat himself (naturally).

Strong Bad later made a revised edition of the story in the email "kids' book." The book was also spoofed in the 100th email "flashback," which in turn inspired Main Page 20.

Cast(in order of appearance): Homestar Runner, Pom Pom, Strong Bad, The Cheat, Mr. Bland, The Robot, Señor, The Announcer, The Grape Fairie

Contents 1 The Story 2 Background 3 Fun Facts 4 External links

The Story

Image description	Text	Link
image description here	The original children's book that started it all. Here's the first cover. Notice at this point he's THE Homestar Runner. (July 96)	View Page 1
image description here	The alternate, construction paper cover. A little less embarassing. (Sept 96)	View Page 2
image description here	The 'I'm just learning Photoshop' remix of the cover. (July 97) And now, onto the story...	View Page 3
image description here	Everybody loves the Homestar Runner. He is a terrific athlete.	View Page 4
image description here	One day, his friend, Pom-Pom, asked him to enter the Strongest Man in the World Contest.	View Page 5
image description here	The Homestar Runner agreed, and the two trained for days and days to become the strongest men in the world.	View Page 6
image description here	On the way to the contest, another competitor, Strong Bad, made fun of them. "I'm the very strongest! You guys are not very strong!"	View Page 7
image description here		View Page 8
image description here		View Page 9
image description here	Upon their arrival, the rules were explained: The Grape Fairie starts everyone off with twenty grapes, then adds one at a time. Whoever holds the most grapes, wins.	View Page 10
image description here	The Grape Fairie granted each of them twenty grapes.	View Page 11
image description here	Mr. Bland did not hold up.	View Page 12
image description here	The Grape Fairie added another grape.	View Page13
image description here	Señor was NOT the strongest man in the world.	View Page 14
image description here	Suddenly, the Robot shut down and dropped his grapes. Homestar knew something was up.	View Page 15
image description here	There were only three contestants left. Another grape was added.	View Page 16
image description here	Homestar noticed that Strong Bad was getting some extra help. "I will drop my grapes and uncover that CHEAT!"	View Page 17
image description here	The Homestar Runner yanked the cheat out from under the pile of grapes. "OH NO!" screamed Strong Bad.	View Page 18
image description here	Strong Bad was squished and Pom-Pom won.	View Page 19
image description here	Knowing that he could not have done it without The Homestar Runner's help, Pom-Pom shared the trophy.	View Page 20

Background

• In an interview, Mike Chapman tells how he and Craig Zobel started the story in 1996:

"Just a story we made one afternoon, went to Kinko's, made about ten or fifteen copies of it, and kind of gave it to our friends, and that was it, really, for several years. We just did that in the summer. We were in college, and did it in a bored afternoon."

Fun Facts

• The alternate text for all of the pictures in the book except the first page and the covers is "Pom Pom's beady eyes".
  • The first cover has no alternate text.
  • The construction paper cover's alternate text is "supa punchtime!"
  • The "Photoshop" cover's alternate text is "Oh, Pollette!"
  • The first page's alternate text is "big head, tiny legs."

External links

• Read the book