Sunday, February 1, 2009

Sunday Funnies: Crazy (#1) Stuff

Greetings Groove-ophiles! Time to tickle the ol' funny bone, this time with Marvel's attempt to capture the hearts, minds, and news stand space occupied by and Mad, Cracked, National Lampoon, and Sick, the big b&w humor mags of the Groovy Age--Crazy! Crazy (not to be confused with the three issue color comic series that reprinted strips from Not Brand Ecch) lasted for nearly a decade (cover-date October, 1973-April, 1983), so I guess the batty Bullpen was successful...

The best issues were the first ten, edited by Marv Wolfman with input from Marvel regulars like Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Steve Skeates, Marie Severin, Mike Ploog, Herb Trimpe, and many more. After Wolfman's tenure, the editorial chores and content were taken over by (mostly) non-bullpenners, and Crazy lost much of its funky charm, looking for all the world like a third-rate Mad rip-off. For its last three or so years, under editor Larry Hama, Crazy got more Marvel-centric, with stories and art by many Bullpen regulars, with especially fun and interesting features by future Superman editor, Mike Carlin.

But it's Sunday, and you don't wanna big history lesson--you wanna yuck it up! Well, okay then--read this selection of snickery from the premiere ish of Crazy (that's ish #1, Irving!) by Kelly Freas (cover), Stu Schwartzberg, Marie Severin, Roy Thomas, Jean Thomas, Marv Wolfman, Michelle Wolfman, Len Wein, Ross Andru, Vic Martin, and special photo-appearances by Thomas, Howard Chaykin (?), Dick Giordano, Neal Adams, Gayle Landers, Mary McPherran, Tony Isabella, and Alex Simmons. But don't blame me if it starts making ya look forward to Monday!
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3 comments:

  1. BooksteveFebruary 1, 2009 at 2:38 AM

    Whaddaya mean we don't want a history lesson? that's one of my favorite parts of these things!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Groovy AgentFebruary 1, 2009 at 9:26 AM

    See how slick I am? I slipped that ol' history lesson in there and ya didn't even know it! ;D

    ReplyDelete
  3. Video Zeta OneFebruary 1, 2009 at 10:07 AM

    I must admit I liked Crazy during the "MAD rip-off" days -it still held its own against other imitators like Cracked. I fell off the Crazy bandwagon around the time they ditched the little sheik and acquired Obnoxio the Clown as their mascot.

    Never knew the guy behind American Flagg was once a Crazy illustrator. Great post!

    ReplyDelete

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


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