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Cracked
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Cracked is a discontinued American humor magazine. Founded in 1958, Cracked proved to be the most durable imitator of the popular Mad Magazine. Cracked blatantly aped Mad's layouts and subject matter, and even featured a dumb, wide-jowled mascot named Sylvester P. Smythe on its covers (see Alfred E. Neuman). The Smythe character was Cracked
Cracked
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Cracked is a discontinued American humor magazine. Founded in 1958, Cracked proved to be the most durable imitator of the popular Mad Magazine. Cracked blatantly aped Mad's layouts and subject matter, and even featured a dumb, wide-jowled mascot named Sylvester P. Smythe on its covers (see Alfred E. Neuman). The Smythe character was Cracked
Cracked
Early staff
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
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)." 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 always read -- deliberately misspelling "magazine." (In the same vein, the magazine's online presence Cracked.com originally referred to itself as a "wesbite.")
Artists
Some notable artists have appeared in Cracked
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.
Other name artists who contributed at least once to Cracked include such Mad veterans as Jack Davis, Will Elder, Al Jaffee, Angelo Torres, Basil Wolverton, and such future contributors as Bill Wray, and Tom Richmond. Others included Marvel Comics regulars Steve Ditko and Gene Colan. The typical "Cracked" contributor was less accomplished, however; "Cracked" was never able to attract and retain the level of talent that the better-paying, better-selling Mad could.
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."
Mad raid
In 1987, Cracked made waves in the comics industry by seemingly raiding the legendary Don Martin from Mad Magazines' group of regular contributors.
While Martin had already left Mad due to a business dispute, it was still a coup to obtain the services of "Mad's Maddest Artist". 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 premiere 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 Cracked
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.
Rise and decline
At its height, Cracked
In late 1999, Cracked
American Media moved Globe Communication's New York City operations to Florida, where American Media was headquartered. As a result, Cracked
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
In an oddity, 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
In 2004, new editors Scott Gosar, Marten Jallad and then-CRACKED webmaster 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.
New ownership and attempted rejuvenation
In early 2005, Kulpa sold Cracked to a group of Arab, Asian, and American investors who announced plans to revive Cracked with a new editorial focus and redesign. Its first steps included naming entrepreneur Monty Sarhan as both CEO and publisher. Sarhan also announced ambitious plans to expand the Cracked brand into other media.
A flurry of new staff announcements followed, including former Marvel Comics promotions chief Sven Larsen as associate publisher, and Justin Droms and former Marvel editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco as editors. Hollywood producer Thom Mount joined the company's board of directors, and Zena Tsarfin, former managing editor of the hip-hop magazine XXL, was named to that position at Cracked. Named as contributing editors were comics Darren Kane and Jesse Falcon, former Spy staffer Jonathan Yevin, and former Cracked Editor-in-Chief Mort Todd. Michael Hobson, the former publisher of Marvel Comics and Scholastic Books, was named a senior advisor, and Neal Pollack was named an "Editor-at-Large." In 2005, Geoff Wolinetz, Nick Jezarian and Josh Abraham, co-founders of a "literary whimsicality" site, YankeePotRoast.org, were named as contributing editors, and Jack O'Brien and former National Lampoon managing editor Jay Pinkerton joined as full-time editors. In 2006, actor/comedian Michael Ian Black was also named as another "Editor-at-Large."
Todd vs. Sarhan
Several months after rejoining Cracked, Todd parted company with the revamped magazine, complaining to the Comics Journal about low pay rates and work-for-hire issues of copyright. Todd complained, "With each visit to the offices I got more dispirited as I saw the direction the magazine was taking. As has been well publicized, Cracked was, instead of ripping off MAD, going to rip off Maxim... A lot of 'revolutionary' humor ideas they've come up with are ones that have been overplayed for decades and ones I rejected for good reason 20 years ago [as Cracked's editor]".
Sarhan wrote in part: "My impression of Mort was that he was stuck in a time warp, wanted to relive his personal 'glory days' when he edited CRACKED and didn’t get what we were trying to do.... A Contributing Editor is a freelancer with whom we have a relationship with. That is all that the title means here at CRACKED. He's a person who is a regular contributor to the magazine, but he is not on staff.... Mort decided to quit as a Contributing Editor because, he said, he had a few TV projects in development. My personal opinion is that he was stuck in the CRACKED of the past and that he didn't like being a freelancer, answering to editors far younger than him here at CRACKED and having his ideas regularly rejected. If your work isn't going to get published, it makes no sense to stay.... Anyone who has spent five minutes on this website knows that we are not a MAXIM clone. It's a ridiculous assertion. We focus on comedy and humor, not women in bikinis. Yes, it's true that we look to MAXIM as a guide for some things. After all, since it's [sic] launch over eight years ago, it has gone on to become one of the most successful magazine titles ever. Who wouldn't want to emulate that success?"
Revamp, relaunch, rejection
The company spent most of 2005 accumulating contributors for its planned relaunch. In October 2005, the company introduced Cracked.com, a website featuring humor articles, videos, comics and blogs. Although the redesigned print magazine had originally been slated to debut in January 2006, this did not occur and the print version's launch was pushed back by several months.
On August 15, 2006, the revamped Cracked Magazine finally appeared. The first issue was a significant departure from Cracked
The Washington Post's Peter Carlson harshly reviewed the debut, listing some of the issue's contents and then adding, "Are you chuckling yet? Me neither." Later, Carlson quoted Crackeds Michael J. Nelson, who'd contributed a short guide to the worst comedy movies ever. Wrote Nelson in his article, "Bad comedies are worse than anything else in the whole of human history." Added Carlson, "Reading Cracked, you understand exactly what he means."
The new Cracked had hoped to position itself as a publication that covers the world of comedy, as well as providing its own comedic content. The debut cover featured a photoshop manipulated image of actor Tom Cruise as the title character from the hit comedy film The 40-Year Old Virgin.
However, after just three poor-selling issues, the failing magazine was cancelled in February 2007. 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, continues.
Cracked.com
The Cracked.com site has been edited by Jack O'Brien since its debut in 2006. David Wong was added as an associate editor the following year; his Pointless Waste Of Time site and its forums were absorbed into Cracked.com. The Cracked site is best known for its humor lists and compilations, for example, "The 9 Most Obnoxious Memes to Ever Escape the Web" and "The 6 Most Insane Game Shows From Around the World." The Cracked site also includes a blog, videos, forums, a writer's workshop, and a daily "Craptions" contest where users caption odd photographs. Cracked.com is frequently included on eBizMBA's calculated list of the internet's "20 Most Popular Funny Sites," and its content is often linked by other websites such as Digg.com.
External links
Marvel Age #22 (Jan. 1985): "Sol Brodsky Remembered", p. 15 (offline) Art by John Severin.
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