When I was a moderately wee lad, there was an established hierarchy of humor magazines available to the budding ten year old misanthrope. At the top of the pyramid was MAD Magazine, the gold standard for gross-out jokes and popcult parodies. If the newstand didn't have the current issue of MAD, one could lower one's standards a little and settle for Cracked, which was like MAD, but with the desperate air of a stand up comedian dying onstage. In the unlikely event that all copies of both MAD and Cracked had sold out, one might pick up a copy of Crazy, Marvel Comics' blurry mimeograph of a photostat of MAD, and see if there was an issue of CARtoons Magazine hidden behind it.
There was something really wrong about Crazy, and not in a good sense. A lot of it stemmed from the tone, which aped MAD's tried and true template, but aspired to a darker, edgier feel that, quite frankly, was beyond the grasp of the writers, many of whom came out of the Marvel Bullpen and were working against type. If I'm looking for bombastic superhero action and loving attention to Golden Age comics trivia, then Roy Thomas is the guy to go to. For edgy racial/social satire, though? Not so much, as this unnecessary and unfunny sendup of MAD contributor Dave Berg's "The Lighter Side of..." strips, titled "The Lighter Side of Racial Violence," from Crazy #1 (October 1973) demonstrates:
The whole affair seems forced and disingenous, an attempt to score points off the competition by weak cheese mimicry masked with a claim of satiric intent and quasi-racist undertones. The rest of the issue isn't much better, with (otherwise fine artist) Herb Trimpe attempting his best Jack Davis impersonation for a lame Posiedon Adventure parody, an illustrated rendition of a Jean Shepherd story where the "goofy" art blunts the comedic impact of the text, and an overlong glimpse at the "World of the Future," via fake newspaper articles, that spends eight full pages beating the reader over the head with repeated unfunny jokes about Cleveland, using Jello as a WMD, and animal-human interbreeding. (They tried to tart the feature up with an intro written by Harlan Ellison and drawn by Basil Wolverton, but it's nothing that's going to appear in career retrospectives of either creator.) Oh, and then there's a fumetti strip starring Dick Giordano (as a realtor) scaring Neal Adams (as an average schmoe) about his daughter possibly being raped by a black man:
Very classy, indeed.The Smiths - That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore (from Meat Is Murder, 1985) - If it ever was in the first place, which I doubt.
Flesh for Lulu - I Go Crazy (from Long Live the New Flesh, 1987) - ...but it's a more acceptable form of insanity than what I dealt with above.
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4 comments:
Speaking of poor imitations of MAD Magazine, do you remember a comic called Plop? Oh, and thanx for posting "Fire on High"! I used to play it over and over when it was the b-side to an ELO single that I had on purple vinyl...
Indeed I do! DC's Plop wasn't half bad for what it was. Sergio Aragones's and Wolverton's contributions were worth looking at, though the comic radiated an aura of "let's do this" rather than "how do we want to do this?"
I don't really agree with your classification of CARtoons as being the bottom of the pile. I'd take an issue of CARtoons whenever I could get one. Between George Trosley, Shawn Kerri and Steve Austin, there was plenty to keep me coming back.
Well, Crazy was the actual bottom of the pile. (There were more laughs to be had in an issue of New American.) The joke might not have been clear, perhaps, but the intended suggestion was that the only reason to pick up an issue of Crazy would be to see if there was a better mag hidden behind it.
I wasn't taking a swipe at CARtoons; it was a constant presence in my North Woburn childhood,where slightly dinged muscle cars could be had for a couple weeks' pay from Purity Supreme. Sadly the well had long run dry by the time I was old enough to consider buying a vehicle....
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