Cracked (magazine)

Cracked

Editor	Sol Brodsky (founding editor)
Categories	Satirical magazine
Frequency	Monthly
Publisher	Major Magazines Globe Publishing Mega Media
First issue	March 1958
Final issue	February 2007
Country	United States
Language	English

Cracked was an American humor magazine. Founded in 1958, Cracked proved to be the most durable of the many publications to be launched in the wake of Mad magazine.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

In print, Cracked featured a dumb, wide-cheeked mascot named Sylvester P. Smythe on its covers (see Alfred E. Neuman).^[7] The Smythe character was Cracked's "janitor." An article on Cracked.com, the companion website, joked that the magazine was "created as a knock-off of Mad magazine just over 50 years ago", and it "spent nearly half a century with a fan base primarily comprised of people who got to the store after Mad sold out."^[8]

Cracked's publication frequency was reduced in the 1990s, and was erratic in the 2000s.^[9] In 2006, the magazine was revived with a new editorial formula that represented a significant departure from its prior Mad style. The new format was more akin to "lad" magazines like Maxim and FHM.^[10] The new formula, however, was unsuccessful and Cracked again canceled its print magazine in February 2007 after three issues. Later that year, the brand was carried over to a website, owned by Demand Media.

Early staff

The first issue of Cracked. Art by Bill Everett.

The magazine's first editor was Sol Brodsky, who was better known as a journeyman artist and later production manager and a publishing vice president at Marvel Comics.

Cracked's original publisher, Robert C. Sproul's Major Publications, generally imitated other companies' successes in various genres, such as westerns, men's adventure, and the Warren Publications mid-1960s revival of horror comics.^[11]

Editor Terry Bisson later recalled, "The whole company was about lowball imitations. The publisher, Robert Sproul, wanted to put out some imitations of western, romance and astrology mags, and I was hired (at about age 27) to put them together because of my romance mag experience... The pseudomags did pretty well (this was a very low end market)."^[12] Many of the Cracked contributors would also work on these titles. A number of monster-themed issues were printed under the Cracked umbrella, capitalizing on such publications as Fangoria and Famous Monsters of Filmland. Sproul published Cracked into the 1980s.

However, even as the company chased publishing trends, its long-running flagship title was Cracked Magazine—or Cracked Mazagine, as its cover often read, deliberately misspelling "magazine". (In the same vein, the magazine's website Cracked.com originally referred to itself as a "wesbite.")

Artists

Some notable artists have appeared in Cracked's pages, in particular the indefatigable John Severin. Severin had done some work for early Mad and a great deal more for EC Comics' war books, and was one of the pre-eminent artists in western comics, but would come to be best known as Cracked's house cartoonist. For almost 40 years, he was the magazine's mainstay artist, frequently illustrating multiple articles in the same issue, and virtually all of its covers.

The magazine also regularly featured good girl artist Bill Ward, comic book stalwart Howard Nostrand, and gag cartoonists Don Orehek and Charles Rodrigues. In later years, the magazine was a useful training ground for such future independent comic book creators as Rick Altergott, Dan Clowes, and Peter Bagge. Clowes would later discuss his childhood ambivalence for the magazine with an interviewer: "No one was ever a fan of Cracked. We would buy Mad every month, but about two weeks later we would get anxious for new material. We would tell ourselves, 'OK, we are not going to buy Cracked. Never again!' And we'd hold out for a while, but then as the month dragged on it just became, 'OK, I guess I'll buy Cracked.' Then you'd bring it home, and immediately you'd remember, 'Oh yeah, I hate Cracked!'"

Other name artists who contributed at least once to Cracked include such Mad veterans as Jack Davis, Will Elder, Al Jaffee, and Basil Wolverton, and such future contributors as Angelo Torres, Bill Wray, and Tom Richmond. Others included Marvel Comics regulars Steve Ditko and Gene Colan. Comics great Jack Kirby contributed once, in 1960. But for the most part, Cracked found it difficult to attract and retain the level of talent that the better-paying, better-selling Mad could.^[13] Richmond, who drew four articles for Cracked, reported on his webpage that he was paid just $100 for a finished page, a small fraction of what he earned for his first Mad assignment.^[14] Richmond also wrote about the bad feeling caused by his short tenure at Cracked: "[Editor Dick Kulpa] was very upset about my leaving Cracked for MAD, but let’s be real… not doing so would have been the same as a minor league Triple-A shortstop refusing a call up to the majors. That was no decision at all."^[15] One publisher who looked into buying the Cracked operation felt that Mad was "in a class by itself" and that "Cracked couldn't top Mad's lineup".^[16]

Articles and features

A typical issue of Cracked included two TV or movie parodies illustrated by Severin. The magazine also published "interview" articles featuring the recurring character Nanny Dickering (Nancy Dickerson was then an investigative newscaster).

One of the magazine's longest-running features was "Shut-Ups," which were two-panel gags in which a character would make an observation or excuse in the first panel, and then be told to "SHUT UP" in the second, as the true situation was visually revealed. "Hudd & Dini," a gag strip about two convicts' failed schemes to escape prison, also ran frequently, as did a Western strip called "Sagebrush." In the 1990s, later recurring features included "Spies vs. Sabs", "Hang-ups", the "Talking Blob", and "the Uggly Family".

Sylvester P. Smythe was Cracked magazine's imitation of Alfred E. Neuman, the mascot of Mad Magazine. Smythe generally appeared on every cover of the magazine, and was typically portrayed as short, blond, wide-cheeked and mute. Smythe's official occupation was janitor for Cracked; thus, he typically appeared in overalls, carrying a mop or sweeper. He sometimes had a smiley button on his cap, and a polka-dotted handkerchief stuffed into a hip pocket. A 1998 reader contest led to Smythe finally getting a full middle name: "Phooey."

International editions

In the mid-1970s, following the Mad business model, Cracked moved into foreign markets. In Great Britain, they produced Cracked British Edition, which consisted entirely of reprinted material from the American magazine, some of it dating back several years. In Germany, there were two publications that included Cracked reprints. First was Kaputt, which ran from 1974–1983; it was followed by Stupid, which ran from 1983-1984. Both magazines used original material in addition to the translated Cracked reprints. Articles were often colorized, particularly in Stupid, or printed in black and white with a single added color. Covers were original, but were often reworkings of previous Cracked covers. It was published in Brazil under the name Pancada by Editora Abril, from 1979 to the mid 80's. The content was translated from the english original and adapted to the brazilian reality of the time (the Democrat and Republican party were substituted respectively by ARENA and MDB, political parties of that era), and football jokes were made into soccer jokes. Most covers where reused from the original american magazine, but some were made by local artists.^{[citation needed]}

Mad raid

In 1985, Mort Todd became editor of Cracked magazine at age 23. In 1987, Cracked made waves in the comic industry by seemingly raiding cartoonist Don Martin from rival Mad, after Martin's 32-year career there.^[17][18] Martin had already left Mad due to a business dispute months earlier.

Martin worked for Cracked for about six years, and the magazine, in a tweak at its rival, billed him as "Cracked's Crackedest Artist". Cracked's concurrent attempt to sign Mad's caricaturist Mort Drucker was unsuccessful, but the magazine did acquire longtime Mad contributor Lou Silverstone as editor and writer. Former Mad associate editor Jerry DeFuccio also worked at Cracked for a short period.

Though sales of Cracked always lagged far behind those of Mad, Cracked endured for more than four decades through low pay rates and overhead, and by being part of large publishing groups that could bundle Cracked in with its other magazines as a package arrangement for distributors. Cracked also appeared monthly during the period when Mad was being published just 8 times a year, thus picking up readership from Mad fans that couldn't wait out the six weeks for their next "comedy fix." The magazine would sometimes include attention-grabbing giveaways inside its pages, such as iron-ons, stickers or postcards.

In the 1990s, Cracked also benefited from the collapse of the National Lampoon, picking up Andy Simmons as an editor, as well as such former Lampoon contributors as Ron Barrett, Randy Jones and Ed Subitzky. In 1995, Greg Grabianski began his career as a writer and associate editor at Cracked (occasionally writing under the pseudonym Judd Stomp) before going on write for TV and film projects like the Scary Movie franchise and Beavis & Butthead.

Rise and decline

At its height, Cracked's circulation might have been a third of Mad's, with the overall total generally rising or falling along with the bigger magazine's fortunes. But at its nadir in the 2000s, this sales figure plunged to around 25,000-35,000 per bi-monthly issue,^[19] or about one-eighth of Mad's monthly circulation, which had also plummeted from its mid-1970s peak of over 2 million per issue.

In late 1999, Cracked's then-parent company, Globe Communications (publisher of the national tabloid The Globe), was sold to American Media Inc., the company that publishes the tabloids The National Enquirer and the Weekly World News. American Media's primary interest in the deal was in acquiring its rival, The Globe, but Cracked came along as part of the transaction. Writer/editor Barry Dutter said, "One thing you have to realize is that AMI never wanted Cracked; it was just part of a package they bought from Globe Communications."^[20]

American Media moved Globe Communications' New York City operations to Florida, where American Media was headquartered. As a result, Cracked's offices moved to Florida as well. Most of the magazine's long-term editors and writers did not move to Florida, leading to a large turnover in Cracked's staff.^[10] Published reports indicate that American Media never had an interest in supporting the magazine, which was only selling in the high five figures, compared with AMI's multi-million-selling line of tabloids. Cracked's distribution under American Media grew increasingly sporadic.

In 2000, American Media sold Cracked to one of its former Weekly World News employees, Dick Kulpa, who became both Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Cracked. Under Kulpa, Cracked suffered from a lack of financing. Combined with Cracked's weakened distribution, circulation continued to drop precipitously, and Kulpa was forced to turn the magazine into a bi-monthly. Dark Horse Star Wars comic editor Peet Janes briefly joined the staff, but financial difficulties at the magazine ended his tenure very quickly. Later, after being offered a substantial pay cut, signature artist John Severin parted company with the magazine.

Cracked was near the center of the 2001 anthrax scare. An anonymous letter containing anthrax powder was sent to American Media Inc. in September 2001, killing one employee. Cracked's offices were still in the same building, and thus the magazine was among the publications that had to be evacuated. As a consequence, the company's archives, containing the magazine's original photographic prints of issues from 1958–2000, had to be destroyed due to contamination.^[21] The attack caused Kulpa to put out only four issues that year.^[22]

In 2004, new editors Scott Gosar and Marten Jallad, and now Promotions Editor Mark Van Woert (under the direction of now-Executive Editor Kulpa) attempted one last resuscitation of the original title. In an effort to generate publicity, Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen was named as the magazine's new "publisher," but this failed to spark interest. The 365th and final issue featured an "Election Year" cover by science fiction artist Frank Kelly Freas, who'd provided many of Mad magazine's covers from 1958-62.

Sale and rebirth as Cracked.com

Main article: Cracked.com

In early 2005, Kulpa sold Cracked to Teshkeel Media Group, a federation of Arab, Asian, and American investors, who announced plans to revive Cracked with a new editorial focus and redesign.^[23] Its first steps included naming entrepreneur Monty Sarhan as both CEO and publisher. Former Editor Mort Todd was named a contributing editor but soon left again.^[24] Writer Neal Pollack was named "editor-at-large."^[25]

On August 15, 2006, the revamped Cracked Magazine finally appeared. The first issue was a significant departure from Cracked's previous incarnation, notably in its sharp reduction of comics and illustrated content. The new format was more text-heavy, and was overtly indebted to modern "lad mags" like Maxim, Stuff and FHM, although the media website Gawker.com wrote, "Very little remains of the old Cracked – a Mad ripoff that had tread water in various incarnations for almost half a century. Much was made of the new direction now ripping off Maxim instead, but aside from a "look and feel" resemblance in terms of layout, the much more obvious (attempted) homage runs to Spy."^[26]

After just three poor-selling issues, the failing magazine was canceled in February 2007.^[27] Citing distribution problems for its demise, editor Jay Pinkerton claimed that the remaining staff would be focusing its energies toward the Cracked website, as well as unspecified book projects. The company's website, Cracked.com, continued on and has become known for its humorous lists and compilations, for example, "The 9 Most Obnoxious Memes to Ever Escape the Web",^[28] "6 Bizarre Forms of Discrimination That Can Lose You a Job" ^[29] A book collection in that vein, You Might be a Zombie, and Other Bad News, was published in 2010.

A two-volume history of the magazine, If You're Cracked, You're Happy, was published in June 2011.

See also

• Warped Magazine

References

1. ^ America's Only Humor & Video Site, Since 1958. Cracked.com. Retrieved on 2010-11-26.
2. ^ CANOE - CNEWS - Media News: Cracked.com will crack you up. Cnews.canoe.ca. Retrieved on 2010-11-26.
3. ^ [1]^{[dead link]}
4. ^ Burr, Ty. (1993-03-05) Harvey Kurtzman: 'Mad' Genius | News. EW.com. Retrieved on 2010-11-26.
5. ^ CRACKED — Crooked Timber. Crookedtimber.org (2006-02-15). Retrieved on 2010-11-26.
6. ^ Scott Gosar...Useless Information and Career Lowlights. Themadstore.com (2007-06-01). Retrieved on 2010-11-26.
7. ^ Projunior at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
8. ^ Bannister, Clive (August 24, 2007). "Mello Yello to Go-Bots: The Top 10 Poor Man's Versions". http://www.cracked.com/article_14910_mello-yello-go-bots-top-10-poor-mans-versions.html. 
9. ^ "Dick Kulpa: The Comics Journal". http://www.tcj.com/242/n_cracked.html. 
10. ^ ^{a b} "The Comics Journal, Michael Dean". http://www.tcj.com/242/n_cracked.html. 
11. ^ Web of Horror Index
12. ^ Web of Horror Index. Enjolrasworld.com (2008-09-15). Retrieved on 2010-11-26.
13. ^ http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/2006/08/17/a-cracked-story/
14. ^ http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/2011/06/09/a-cracked-history-lesson/#comments
15. ^ http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/2006/08/17/a-cracked-story/
16. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=4Ofd-XudNAcC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=%22cracked+magazine%22+%2B+talent+not+as+good&source=bl&ots=aRqdh1ChdP&sig=J-HnkcBouadzDQg0Hyigde8xw9c&hl=en&ei=CN9dTcKOA8mr8AaetPGSDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22cracked%20magazine%22%20%2B%20talent%20not%20as%20good&f=false
17. ^ Burgess, Steve. "Don Martin", Salon, January 15, 2000.
18. ^ "Don Martin Moves to Cracked," The Comics Journal #118 (Dec. 1987), pp. 12-13.
19. ^ "News Observer; Circulation: 1970's - Early 2005". http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/483005.html. 
20. ^ The Comics Journal: Newswatch
21. ^ "Man Tries to Destroy Cracked, Receives Swift Justice (7 Years Later)." Cracked.com blog, August 15, 2008
22. ^ Dean, Michael. "Newswatch: Reeling from Anthrax Attack and Distribution Troubles, Cracked Awaits Salvation," The Comics Journal #242 (April 2002), pp. 11-15.
23. ^ "Newswatch: Cracked Purchased by Mideast Group," The Comics Journal #267 (Apr./May 2005), p. 45.
24. ^ "Newswatch: Cracked Launches Website, sans Todd," The Comics Journal #272 (Nov. 2005), p. 37-38.
25. ^ "Newswatch: Pollack on Board at Cracked," The Comics Journal #271 (Oct. 2005), p. 46.
26. ^ Cracked: Cracked at Last
27. ^ The Apiary: Cracked Magazine Crumbles
28. ^ Knight, David. "The 9 Most Obnoxious Memes to Ever Escape the Web" Cracked.com; May 15, 2008
29. ^ O'Lachlan, SRobin. "6 Bizarre Forms of Discrimination That Can Lose You a Job" Cracked.com; September 14, 2010

External links

• Cracked.com, offshoot of the original magazine
• Marvel Age #22 (Jan. 1985): "Sol Brodsky Remembered", p. 15 (offline)
• Associated Press: In Comeback, Cracked Vows Crass Comedy
• Press release: CRACKED magazine relaunch
• Three panels from the Cracked parody of "Planet of the Apes." Art by John Severin.
• Cracked Magazine cover gallery