Mad and Cracked Magazine…a quick look

To those that it applies…Happy Independence Day! I’ll have a couple of songs coming up related to Independence Day.

I never got into comic books like Marvel or DC…I would save up my allowance for Cracked and Mad magazine…and records of course. Mad Magazine was by far the most popular out of all of the satire comic magazines. William Gaines was the publisher of Mad magazine and was brilliant.

William Gaines – sendingdeadletters

1952 – Present…now you an only get Mad from Comic Book Shops or order it. The new editions consist of mostly material from their archive.

Cracked was known as the poor man’s Mad but I still liked it and the magazines shared some writers and artists through the years. I bought my first Cracked Magazine when Mad was sold out but I never missed an issue after that.

1958-2007 Now the name is alive on a website but no longer a comic.

Alfred E Newman and Sylvester P. Smythe

Sylvester P. Smythe | The Belated NerdSylvester P. Smythe | Cracked Wiki | Fandom

Don Martin was my favorite artist. He was one of Mad’s most famous artists. He was there from 1956 to 1988. He was known as “Mads Maddest Artist” and then moved to Cracked and was jokingly known as “Cracked’s Crackedest Artist.”

Fellow Cracked artist Dan Clowes: “As far as I could tell, he was happy,  don’t think he ever seemed to notice that Mad was respected, whereas Cracked was loathed.”

Completely Mad Don Martin TPB (1974 Warner Books) A MAD Big Book ...

Cracked #235 May 1988 cover by Don Martin | Mad magazine, Vintage ...

 

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

28 thoughts on “Mad and Cracked Magazine…a quick look”

  1. Happy Independence Day Max!
    Enjoy your weekend.

    I used to buy the odd Mad Magazine and Cracked as well. But I was too obsessed with buying rock mags but when I would go camping with my family I would buy this lighthearted stuff to keep me amused.
    Great graphics.

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    1. Thanks Deke…and you also. BTW I joined last night late but I caught it at “I Can’t Get It Out of My Head” I really enjoyed it.

      I would buy Rolling Stone also back in the day.

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      2. I’ll be there man. Last night I got caught up with something and looked at the clock…”damn!” lol and that is where I picked up.

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  2. Happy July 4th, Max!!
    I’m like you – never was a comic book fan (my bro was and still bitches some 45 years on that our Mom allegedly threw away a box of his from the ’70s) but I loved ‘MAd’. Used to make me laugh out loud. Don Martin was good, spy vs spy, the shadow knows… all those movie or TV parodies. And of course that trick back cover that made something different when you folded it! So cool!
    Strangely though, never got into ‘Crack’d”. Bought maybe three through the years and didn’t like them for whatever reason. But ‘Mad’ was a monthly buy when I was around 8-12 or 13.

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    1. I loved the parodies as well. I had a friend in high school that was an excellent artist…and still is. We would read these all of the time and we did our own comics…he would draw of course and I would come up with the material. I wish I still had those.

      But yea I loved both of these.

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  3. I never got into Mad and I just barely remember Cracked. My dad was more into comic books than I was. I remember reading his The Witching Hour, Tales From The Crypt, Weird War, The House of Mystery, DC’s Ghosts & Weird Mystery. It never occurred to him to keep them.

    I got into comic books in the middle 90s…mostly Marvel stuff but, some DC, plus Indie labels that were start-ups.

    Thanks for the damn link. I just spent two hours in a Cracked rabbit hole.

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    1. LOL anytime!!!! I am glad to assist.

      I loved the magazine and it’s sad that magazines like these are almost gone.

      I never tried DC or Marvel…heck I might have liked them but I saw these first.

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  4. I loved Mad magazine! It was perfectly, brilliantly witty. It had the Spy vs Spy cartoons, right? I remember buying a paperback of nothing but Spy vs Spy cartoons for reading on a long road trip. They were a bit like solving puzzles.

    Happy 4th!

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  5. I never much cared for Cracked. Not even when Don Martin up and left Mad for Cracked.

    I always was a fan of “Spy vs. Spy (vs. Spy)” by Antonio Prohias and the Marginal Humor of Sergio Aragones. It was my favorite magazine when I was in high school. The movie and TV spoofs were incredible, as were the “white papers” that were never quite “white” (e.g. a “green” paper because we left it under a pile of grass clippings). There was a lot of astute commentary between the covers for a magazine basically aimed at middle and high schoolers…

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    1. I don’t know why but I was drawn to Cracked also. It was looked down upon by comic fans.

      Love Spy vs Spy also. Sergio was great…I should have made this post longer and contained more.
      I got into these between 1978- around 1981…when I was 11 – 14…these are the only two I really liked…”Crazy” was another one but I didn’t like that one.

      The spoofs were great.

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  6. So glad to read you were into these as well. I obsessed over these rags as a kid. My mate had a porn load of them (excuse the expression) and we just went to town with them. My god the movie cartoon sections had me in stitches and the back page fold in triplet was something special every time. Thanks for the rehashing these great memories from my youth! You’re a legend man! haha

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    1. They were a rite of passage I believe for kids our age. I loved the spoofs, Spy vs Spy and all the others.
      I was hooked on them! Mad had a dvd you could buy with every magazine on it…. Thanks Matt I’m glad you enjoyed it!

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      2. Oh the DVD contains all the magazines from the 50s til now. You install it on your computer and can read through every decade

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  8. I was really into Marvel comics. At one time I had a subscription to Spider-Man, Captain America, Daredevil, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers and The X-Men, all at the same time! I still have all my books, but in terrible shape. Which I had took care of them. But I also never missed an edition of Mad Magazine. I loved it!

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    1. Wow dude…you were into them a lot. I probably would have been if I would have been exposed to them more.
      I wish I still had my Mad and Cracked…no matter the shape…but yea mint would be great!

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