Cracked #97, 2 of 3

And now more of the 97th issue of Cracked from 1971, featuring other artists beside John Severin.

Here was a common theme in humor, the profile of the American teenager, as seen by middle-aged men. The art is an early work of Howard Cruse, whose commercial work was more bigfoot before the more confessional and autobiographical work he was known for later. He's not on the masthead, probably because, I've been told, they used to recycle it rather than pay a typesetter for a new one each issue.

Throughout its run, Cracked relied on stills from old movies with funny captions. This was started by Harvey Kurtzman in Help! to fill up space when they couldn't afford to commission writers and artists for the space.

Here's mainstay artist John Severin again

Here's them cashing in on the psychedelia craze from two years earlier. Last week I posted the poster they had on the inside covers. Groovy, isn't it?

I can't remember if I posted this or not. It did appear in other issues. It's an old joke and I may have posted another version of this before.

A piece by Don Orehek

The next few pages were a piece called “Cracked Looks At the Beach” which was later used in the paperback Cracked Up which I posted a few years ago,.

And then...

Et tu, Cracked?

This was probably the most politically incorrect piece Cracked ever did, and now it's the most politically incorrect thing I ever posted. I was hesitant about posting it, but nobody would believe me that it existed if I mentioned it, and someone would point out it was there if I pretended it didn't exist at all. They never printed anything like this before or since. A staffer may have done this unironically without thinking of its effect and an editor made the introduction into a disclaimer, just as I'm doing now.

Since there were no credits and the masthead wasn't exactly accurate, I have no idea who was responsible. Not only was it funny to them in 1971, but I remember it from an annual I saw as a kid in 1980. It was acceptable to them to reprint that recently.

HERE IT IS. CLICK ON THIS HYPERLINK TO SEE A FIGMENT OF OUR DARK PAST AND REMEMBER IT'S NOT MY FAULT.

[Link removed. Though posted ironically, now more than ever is the worst time to do it.]