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Eric: I never did trust those bears

(From Yirmumah. Click on the thumbnail for full sized studio apartment!)

I should mention, before anything else, that I like the continued acknowledgment that Bob exists. And that karma is destroying him into a shattered gel of a man.

I've never typed the words 'shattered gel of a man' before. It's oddly fun.

However, I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about Cracked Magazine.

Growing up, I was never a long standing Mad fan. Oh, I liked Mad fine. I read a fair number of issues of Mad at the local supermarket (I read a fair number of Conan and Vamperilla magazines there too -- to this day, I assume the tiny French God-fearing Catholics -- Catholics who bitterly opposed the change in the law that permitted stores to be open on Sunday in town and who refused to open the IGA on Sunday even if that meant Soucy's made out like bandits -- never thumbed through those magazines. They might have realized they were selling soft core porn and... I dunno. Catholicked up or something. But I digress.)

But for whatever reason, it was Cracked that had me. I learned of the brilliance of John Severin in its pages. I first saw Dan Clowes's work there. I could actually spell the name Robert C. Sproul, and no human being should be able to do that.

And, I always liked Sylvester P. Smythe as a mascot. I know he was a cheap knockoff of Alfred E. Neuman, but I just liked him better for some reason. Maybe because was a janitor. Alfred never felt like he... I dunno, did anything for a living. Sylvester had a reason to be at the magazine.

Anyway -- I know the new Cracked is more a ripoff of Maxim than Mad, but I'm still glad to see it's coming back. And I'm equally glad to see that Yirmumah is appearing at their website, and apparently will be appearing in its pages. While in a way, D.J. Coffman is more Don Martin than John Severin, it's worth noting Don Martin closed out his storied career at Cracked.

Anyway -- this is really cool, and it gave me a chance to wax eloquent about Cracked, which is a magazine I always seemed to like more than everyone else. So... you know. Good enough.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at December 15, 2005 3:44 PM

Comments

Comment from: djcoffman posted at December 15, 2005 4:18 PM

Thanks for the props Eric...

I can't wait to see what they're actually doing with the new mag. I don't think they're actually a Maxim clone, but that's just the audience they're reaching out to, young to middle aged males I suppose.

I hear the new mag has writers from Chappellle Show, SNL and National Lampoons in the first issue, so that ought to be something.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at December 15, 2005 4:26 PM

I'll be there, one way or another. Because Dude. It's Cracked.

Comment from: djcoffman posted at December 15, 2005 4:34 PM

That last year or so of Cracked was kinda bad, under Dick Kulpa-- I met Dick at the Pittsburgh Comicon a couple years back and he loved my stuff and demanded I send stuff in. He gave me sample issues he had out, and the quality was lousy, not the Cracked I remember when I was kid. The editing was poor too.---

these new guys though, they seem to have their act together and "get it" -- whatever "it" is.

I was told February 20th was the on sale date too, if i remember correctly.

Comment from: PatMan posted at December 15, 2005 5:14 PM

You're not allowed to post first on a snark about yourself, Deej. Shame. What ever happened to tradition? Like not opening stores on Sunday? And syndicated newspaper comics? And... and...

Man, tradition blows. Who wants an early morning beer?

Comment from: djcoffman posted at December 15, 2005 5:28 PM

Well, it's a been a busy day so I thought I'd chime in when I had time. I wasn't aware of the rules.... please don't whip me, Eric.

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at December 15, 2005 6:16 PM

Well, I don't know if the new Cracked will be good or not. But at least they're trying something to change things up. Mad has needed that for years.

Comment from: Axonite posted at December 15, 2005 6:48 PM

I'll be looking for the new Cracked... I hope it's better than the last couple issues I saw, but I always liked the old one. Even though it was obviously trying to be Mad, sometimes it succeeded at that better than Mad did... :)

Next someone needs to bring back Sick magazine, with their mascot, Huckleberry Fink.

Why Try Harder?

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at December 15, 2005 7:21 PM

Actually, it has me wondering... if Cracked is going to try a more adult magazine, does that mean people are going to call it a ripoff of National Lampoon instead of Mad?

As for SNL writers... from which years? That could make or break the magazine.

Comment from: PO8 posted at December 15, 2005 8:26 PM

Maybe this is out of place or unwelcome, but I hope not---I just wanted to say "thanks" to Eric for all the Snarks of unfamiliar webcomics in the past few days! I've added a couple of new comics to my trawl, and had a really great time reading the interesting analysis that is the hallmark of this site.

Keep up the good work, and again thanks!

Comment from: djcoffman posted at December 15, 2005 9:06 PM

I'm not sure what the writers names are, but there will be various writers, so I doubt if one writer from SNL could make or break the new mag.-- Oh, and it looks like writers FROM National Lampoons are writing for Cracked as well.

I'd like to think this new Cracked won't be trying to emulate anything, and be something that will stand out. We'll see in February!

Comment from: Paul Gadzikowski posted at December 15, 2005 9:13 PM

You know, D.J., ever since you drew that gag about the goatee I think of you every time I see a cellphone ad.

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at December 15, 2005 9:47 PM

Okay, so no single writer is likely to make or break the mag (unless said writer is the head editor, and can't judge a gag for the life of him). That's just mostly my snide opinion of recent Saturday Night Live.

Now, if Cracked has a writer fromthe Phil Hartman era, I'd probably buy the magazine without flipping through it first. Man, they had some great stuff back then.

Comment from: djcoffman posted at December 15, 2005 11:23 PM

Jay Pinkerton just became an editor there I do believe-- he left National Lampoon to go there.. he has a great site at jaypinkerton.com

Comment from: RoboYuji posted at December 16, 2005 12:27 AM

I had such a goddamn crush on Nanny Dickering when I was a kid . . .

Comment from: oball posted at December 16, 2005 7:19 AM

Yes! Listen to D.J.'s advice and visit Jay Pinkerton's site. It has the highest concentration of funny on the internet.

Comment from: gwalla posted at December 17, 2005 1:28 AM

I liked when Cracked made fun of the Atlanta Olympics mascot. "Whatthe?"

Mad has been awful for ages. They're so creatively bankrupt that they regularly reprint parodies of summer movies from years back that nobody cares about anymore. It's sad.

Jay Pinkerton's brain contains the world's highest concentration of wrong. The Spider-Man comic strip photomanips are classics, of course, and so are his parodies of the origins of Superman and Batman. His Batman Begins primer is also entertaining as hell.

Comment from: MrPerson posted at December 17, 2005 6:55 AM

Someone needs to release a "Complete Don Martin" book. It'd sit right next to my Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus DVD set. Him and Sergio Aragones are the best things to come out of MAD.

Websnark

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