CRAZY #20

More from Crazy commemorating the Bicentennial, this time it's October 1976.

Cover by new artist Bob Larkin. Parody of Space:1999 by Len Herman and Ernie Colón David Kelly was probably a pen name of Paul Laikin, who wrote much of the issue himself. Art by Murad Gumen. The late Bill DuBay Caricatures by Kent Gamble. I'm not sure who the radio guy is supposed to be. He mentions this piece in the interview he did for If You're Cracked You're Happy:

”Well, a few weeks later I got a script in the mail from Paul. It was just a one-page thing with singers on it like Elton John, Frank Sinatra, a few singers. Anyway, I did that one page, he liked it, and a few weeks later I got a TV satire of Barney Miller. That was my first one.” They did lots of articles about how dangerous New York and other cities supposedly were, like this article drawn by Jack Sparling. Always trying to fit in the “Make Mine Marvel” attitude, they added this and used a stock drawing by Marie Severin. Ad campaign they had then for Timex watches, showing how damage to the watches would not stop them from running. Alan Kupperberg. Veteran comics artist ”Darlin'” Dick Ayers I don't know what's supposed to be on the bottom either. In case you were wondering, or care, the actual translations would be »Cтоп! Обед!» and “Devo dire a mio padre o vero?” This was the back cover. The other side was the stats that would be on the back of real baseball cards, and you could cut them up and pretend they were cards.

CRAZY #19

Here's another issue of Crazy just like last week, from August 1976.

This cover is by Bob Larkin, no relation to editor Paul Laikin even though he used similar pseudonyms. This is typical of the parodies they did in anticipation of a movie yet to come out. They didn't get screeners, or even stills, and here's an attempt to be the first to cash in on the 1976 production of King Kong without knowing anything about it, not even who the actors would be. Here's the parody by Len Herman and Ernie Colón. Notice this article illustrated by Bill DuBay gets the captions mixed up. Don Orehek Alan Kupperberg Eden Norah was Paul Laikin's daughter. Jack Sparling Tony Tallarico In case you were wondering, the foreign words are complete gibberish. One letter doesn't seem to actually exist. The results were similar in other languages that use a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian translation is literally “Kató of lyuléya and mu slàdko páprits auto ѝ th th ss náni E, náni mámino deténtse”.

The Italian dialogue makes slightly more sense but not much, translating to “Siri, the remains megono direct mission German Hercules”. If I had an iPhone, I'd say this into it to see what it would do. Ray Billingsley Murad Gumen

what, me funny?

I posted the Dave Berg parody a few months ago, but here's the whole article it comes from. NATIONAL LAMPOON started out like an adult MAD since they had almost the same audience at the beginning. It didn't help that they started out making things “funny” and their first issue had a mascot. When they hired Michael Gross as art director, he knew their parodies worked better if they resembled the real thing. Then when he left and most of the original staff left and Nixon resigned, they became less relevant or funny. Right-wing pundit P.J. O'Rourke took over and made it cohesive again but also helped turn it into the titty mag most people know it as. By then it was run by cokeheads instead of potheads.

When they were at their prime and found their own voice, they did this parody of MAD. A lot of the people behind this eventually worked for them or had worked for them in the past. This was part of their Back-to-School issue in October 1971.
They were in the same building as Marvel Comics and hired lots of their artists, who never did anything for them again. Maybe they were never paid, since owner Matty Simmons was notorious for doing that to one-time artists.

Harvey Kurtzman was a mentor to the founders of NATIONAL LAMPOON, though he didn't return the favor, not getting their brand of humor.