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Aug. 1981 - "The magazine that dares to be dumb!"
Yes, we're back with another issue of Crazy. Two issues of the same magazine in one week? Yes, and all I can say is trust me; I have a method to my madness.
This issue opens with the movie parody "Peepeye" by Paul Kupperberg and Bob Camp:
...in many ways, I enjoyed this more than the actual movie. But I digress.
Kovacs is back with another one-page gag strip, followed by another adventure starring Teen Hulk:
Following that is another fumetti segment, starring...Neal Adams?!?:
...yes, this fumetti section features the legendary Mr. Adams, and his family, in a goofy little adventure.
After that is "Mother Goose's Rejected Nursery Rhymes", "New Inventions of Modern Science", "Crazy Looks At The Drive-In Movie" (also written by Paul Kupperberg), and "The Kinetic Kids" by Steve Mellor.
Howard the Duck makes another appearance, by Steve Skeates and Pat Broderick:
Following that is another installment with Obnoxio the Clown, "The Eleventh Hour Special" (goofs on current musicians like Queen and Elvis Costello, told entirely in rhyme), and then a final parody, "The Love Bore", by Murad Gumen and Kent Gamble.
On the inside cover, Mike Carlin gives up his patented "Page O' Stuff":
Not quite as solid an issue as the one talked about earlier in the week, but still not bad. I'm struck by the general diversity of material found in any given issue of Crazy, and that is definitely on display here.
Nov. 1980 - "The magazine that dares to be dumb!"
A very timely and beautifully painted cover (by Bob Larkin) adorns this issue of Crazy. Makes me miss the old arcade that I spent many hours in...
Anyway, this issue starts off with an extremely cynical and downbeat fake Army ad (drawn by Herb Trimpe and Al Milgrom) that basically suggests we're all going to get vaporized in a nuclear holocaust soon. *Whew*, time for Obnoxio the Clown, eh?
The main parody of this issue is, of all things, a take-off on American Giggolo, written by Paul Kupperberg and drawn by Gary Hallgren:
There's the first of a series of one-page gag strips by an artist named Kovacs, who was sort of Crazy's answer to Don Martin.
Next is a recurring feature, Teen Hulk, by Jim Owlsley and Ron Wilson:
Following this is a fumetti segment called "Sugar Junkies", about a rock band, then "Self Defense for Girls" (by Joey (a girl) Epstein--that's what the credit reads), a one-page gag featuring Spider-Man (drawn by Ed Hannigan and Milgrom, so it looks just like a "regular" Marvel comic), "Crazy Visits The First Day of School", again by Kupperberg and drawn by Ned Sonntag, and then a really interesting piece, "Target...Earth!":
This is an old Marvel monster comic by Lee and Ditko with all-new dialogue by Marc Bilgrey. Its not terribly funny, but it seems more irreverent just from it goofing on a previous Marvel comic.
There's another Howard the Duck feature by Steve Skeates and Pat Broderick, then Obnoxio the Clown by Alan Kupperberg, followed by a piece that I think ranks as one of the best things Crazy ever did:
Goofing on Star Wars is old hat now, but so deliberately replicating a Kenner toy ad in 1980 must have been seemed pretty...well, crazy. And swapping out Star Wars for Kramer vs. Kramer makes it even better.
There's another parody piece, "The Dupes of Haggard", by Murad Gumen and Kent Gamble, followed by a fake ad for aspirin, ending on the back cover with an ad for a "204 pc. Urban Riot Figures" set, looking like those old ads that ran in comics for decades.
All in all, a pretty funny issue (though I did miss Mike Carlin's "Page O'Stuff"), with some real highlights. Crazy was really giving Mad a run for its money!
Dec. 1981 - "The magazine that dares to be dumb!"
As I've mentioned once or twice before, Crazy was one of those magazines that would have been perfect for me. I was around nine or ten when issues like this came out, and its humor, since it leaned more towards superhero parodies (being produced as it was by Marvel Comics), was right up my alley.
But for some reason, I can never remember seeing hardly any issues of the series at my local newsstands. There was always Mad, most of the time Cracked, but I almost never saw Crazy. Not sure why that was, but I'm sure if I had seen it for sale at the time, I would've picked it up, especially issues with covers like this!
When searching on eBay for an issue of Crazy to read, I couldn't pass up a Marvel book parodying a DC character. Little did I know the spoof, titled Sooperman, Too!, was written by none other than DC stalwart, Paul Kupperberg!:
At only six pages, this story moves at a lightning fast pace. And there are a couple of moments that actually made me laugh out loud, even all these years later.
Marvel had the advantage of putting some of their regular people on Crazy, who turned out spectacular work. A good example of that is "Teen Hulk!" by Jim Owsley and Bob McLeod:
McLeod's work here is just beautiful, with just enough cartooniness to make the humor work.
There's another installment of "Dirk McGirk", the intellectually-challenged (but indefatigable) fifth grader by Mike Carlin. Following that is "If They Were Alive Today", by Dick Codor, who has famous women from history in modern times.
Most of the jokes are silly, of course, but the final page of the strip features some interesting social and political commentary that sort of sneaks up on you:
...I simply love this last panel; with the rich M.D. being driven by in a limo, while Florence Nightengale tends to those with real needs.
There's "Auntie Nuke", by Susan Bissett and Steve Smallwood, who does a nice job on the art:
There's also "Crazy Looks At Trick or Treating", "The Kinetic Kids" by Steve Mellor (which is two pages you flip back and forth and note the changes; sort Crazy's version of the Mad Fold-In), a fumetti feature called "Night of the Living Hand!", and "Great Poems Shortened Into Limericks".
This being Crazy, there's always an appearance by Obnoxio The Clown:
There's a couple more one or two page strips, ending with a "traditional" TV/movie parody; in this case "M*U*S*H In Vietnam" by Murad Gumen(?) and Kent Gamble:
Being a big M*A*S*H fan, I have to admit I didn't laugh too much at the jokes, but man the artwork by Gamble is really nice: well drawn, beautiful to look at, but also funny and featuring superb caricatures.
On the inside back cover, Mike Carlin gets another page to his own with the appropriately-titled "Mike Carlin's Page O'Stuff":
I bought this magazine on eBay for around $1.50, a good deal---there's a lot of solid material in here, and I'm really sorry I didn't discover this when I was ten: I would've loved it.
I never got into Crazy too much--I was more of a Cracked man, myself.
But after having read the first issue a way back, I was impressed at the high level of talent it attracted. Maybe at the next comic con I'll try and pick up some of them on the cheap and give Crazy a proper look-see.
I think one of the reasons Marvel always seemed so much more hip than DC was that they were willing to send up any aspect of their universe--Dr.Doom pitched FOOM memberships, Spidey dressed like Santa to sell subscriptions, etc.
And that freewheeling attitude wasn't limited to the confines of the Marvel Universe, of course. Staff members became an integral part of the Marvel Comics-reading process, and even Stan the Man wasn't above appearing in an ad for Crazy!
Another nice Marvel ad. I always liked when companies would throw all their characters together, especially ones that normally you'd never see in the same place.
I mean, where else are you going to see Shang-Chi, Doc Savage, Conan, Ursus, and Sherlock Holmes all together? What the heck would they say to one another??
(btw, where's the Crazy mascot?)
"[I have confiscated] many issue of Mad, Cracked, and the occasional Crazy." - Principal Seymour Skinner
As is usual with The Simpsons, that pretty much sums up Crazy's legacy, doesn't it? Most kids who grew up reading the above magazines usually bought Crazy when they either couldn't get the other two, or had a little money left over.
Not to suggest Crazy was bad or anything--in fact, when I bought this debut issue, I was surprised at the awesome talent Marvel had lined up for it--Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, Don McGregor, Tony Isabella, Vaughn Bode, Harlan Ellison, Steve Skeates, Jean Shepherd(!), and Len Wein as writers, Ross Andru, Mike Ploog, Kelly Freas, Herb Trimpe, and Basil Wolverton doing the art! Wow!
We get "Kung Fooey" drawn by Mike Ploog, a one-page team-up called "Breaking and Entering Pandora's Box" of Ellison and Wolverton, a segment called "The Daily Survivor" which pre-dates The Onion by a few decades, a fumetti starring Roy Thomas, and another starring Dick Giordano and Neal Adams!
There's also Mad-esque shots at the auto industry, cigarettes, a parody of The Poseidon Adventure, Bob Foster's "Moosekind" strip, and another fumetti--this time called "Foom-etti"--starring Marv Wolfman, photographed by Vince Colletta!
You can feel some of the Marvel regulars really having fun cutting loose here, and there is some genuinely funny stuff in this first issue. Like a lot of Mad's competitors, they were aiming for an audience just slightly older than Mad. Considering Crazy ran over ten years, it's clear the magazine was fairly successful financially as well as creatively.
