Mermaids in Diver Magazine / divermag.com

Mermaid on the Rocks – has Diver Magazine hatched a trend?

Swimming our way back to November 2007, Diver Magazine featured Malena Sharkey on the cover wearing nothing but her mermaid costume. The Florida-based diver has a unique moonlighting career as a mermaid model and the magazine wanted to give her career some exposure.

That particular issue turned out to be extremely popular. Does that mean that nearly nude mermaid models will be the next big thing? Is Diver the first publication to grab the mermaid craze by the tail? Check out the latest Compari calendar and you will see that Diver has jumped onto the mermaid popularity wave long before it is even close to cresting.

The makers of Compari aperitif have issued a new 2008 calender featuring Eva Mendes posed in 12 different fairytale scenes – one story picture for each month of the year. This month, the American actress (2 Fast 2 Furious, Hitch, Training Day and We Own the Night) appears as a sultry mature Little Mermaid.

The calendar picture of the Little Mermaid is a far cry from the character created in 1837 by children’s fable writer Hans Christian Andersen. In the Compari shot two half-naked men crawl across the seashore to bring Mendes a refill on her drink.

If the mermaid’s calendar cheesecake looks a little fishy, that is because there was a whole school of Hollywood types hired to make photographic magic in the creation of the calendar. While Diver Magazine’s mermaid picture was printed without the use of Photoshop, the two photographs printed above show how much work went into making Ms. Mendes the Little Compari sipping Mermaid.

Cut line

ß Pictured: a behind the scenes picture of Eva Mendes posing as the Little Mermaid. CampariCalendar2008MakingOfMermaid.jpg
ß Pictured: after a team of lighting experts, photographers and mermaid costumers had worked their collective magic, this image now graces the Compari 2008 calendar. CampariCalendar2008MakingOfMermaid.jpg