Snafu, 1 of 4

When Marvel Comics (or Atlas as it was called then) was the comics arm of Magazine Management and was in the business of making carbon copies of other publications, they also got in the game of Mad-inspired humor magazines. First with imitations of Mad when it was a color comic (Crazy,Wild, and Riot) then as a magazine, which they changed to Snafu. Like most of the other humor magazines then, it was fairly short-lived, lasting only three issues. This was the second in January 1956. I posted an article from the first issue a few years ago (have I really had this blog that long?)

Humor magazines, even before Mad, often used “old” photographs. But to put chronology into perspective, it would be like if now a magazine used photos from the seventies.

Normally I don't post the contents page of magazines like this, but here we can see some of the early roots of Marvel. Many comics scholars stay Stan Lee was more of a mascot than actual writer of the later superhero stories, but here's proof that he at least wrote the humorous credits with nicknames of all the contributors and quips about their character. Irving Forbush was a name that would be recycled.

John Severin and Joe Maneely are credited as the sole artists, though there are others and Severin did very little for this issue. Maneely did most of the work here and played the role of Stan Lee's other half before Kirby came along.

For those who didn't know, in the “naughtier version” mentioned here, the F in Snafu stands for “fucked”.

I also don't think Stan Lee realized Harvey Kurtzman's use of “Ferschlugginer” was a parody of Yiddish adjectives when he used the real word “mashuguna”.

Parody of Pete Kelley's Blues

Yes, there is a nude body in this issue on the next page, but you'll have to wait until next week to see it.