POW 2, 1 of 4

Here's another humor magazine a bit different because it didn't have a mascot. It reprinted a few things from CRACKED and later vice-versa. Some of the articles also came from ZANY. There was a reason for much of this: it was one of the many magazines published by the same company. They mostly did mens' adventure and girlie magazines with humor as one of their many branches. Before they had SUPER CRACKED and GIANT CRACKED and CRACKED MONSTERS, etc. they did several humor magazines under different titles, using the same artists. Much of this all will be indexed in the forthcoming HISTORY OF CRACKED.


Because of the BATMAN TV show, all media started using "campy" sound effect blurbs. This may have been what inspired the title POW!


For some reason, Bill Ward signed a lot of stuff for these early magazines "McCartney". It's not as if he had anything to hide, like most people who use pseudonyms. My theory is that he used his real name for the dolled up females he was best known for and the pen name for everything else. Usually it's the other way around. I guess we'll never know the real reason.




A lot of publishers filled space and saved money by using free stills they got for movies and from their press wires.