Cracked #258
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeCracked #258 arrived in November 1990 at the precise cultural moment when The Simpsons, Dick Tracy, Back to the Future III, and Total Recall were simultaneously dominating movie theaters and television sets — making its pop-culture cross-section an unusually sharp snapshot of early-1990s mainstream entertainment. The issue also represents John Severin at the tail end of his decades-long reign as Cracked's defining visual voice: his cover art here belongs to the final years before editor Mort Todd's creative renaissance gave way to a more juvenile editorial direction, giving the issue a transitional quality that collectors of the magazine's 'serious comedy' era find meaningful. As one of many Cracked issues to lampoon The Simpsons by name rather than with a disguised title, it illustrates the magazine's distinctive — and legally adventurous — habit of parody without the fig leaf of title alteration.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
By November 1990, Cracked was being published by Globe Communications, the tabloid company that had acquired Major Publications (the magazine's original home) and continued releasing issues under the legacy 'Major Magazines' imprint. The issue falls at the close of the editorially active period that Mort Todd had spearheaded from roughly 1985 onward; Todd's departure left the magazine in a transitional state that critics and collectors have since identified as the beginning of a creative plateau. John Severin — who had been the magazine's primary cover artist and main interior illustrator since the late 1950s, contributing under his own name and various pseudonyms to give the book an appearance of greater artistic breadth — continued to anchor the issue visually, as he would until well into the 2000s.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Publisher: Globe Communications (distributing under the legacy 'Major Magazines' imprint); cover-dated November 1990.
- Cover art by John Severin, depicting The Simpsons — part of his nearly 40-year run as Cracked's house cover artist and primary interior illustrator.
- Interior art credits include John Severin, Don Martin, Ron Wagner, Walter Brogan, Gary Fields, Pete Fitzgerald, Mike Ricigliano, Rob Orzechowski, and Don Orehek.
- Parody targets confirmed across multiple sources: The Simpsons, Dick Tracy, Back to the Future III, and Total Recall — four of the biggest pop-culture properties of 1990.
- The Simpsons parody appears under the show's real name, consistent with Cracked's practice of running some satires without disguising the title (unlike rival Mad, which typically altered titles).
- Don Martin — the acclaimed cartoonist who had defined much of Mad's visual identity before his acrimonious departure — contributed interior art, reflecting Cracked's ongoing effort to attract high-profile talent during this period.
- John Severin (December 26, 1921 – February 12, 2012) was an EC Comics veteran, one of Mad's five founding cartoonists, and a Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame inductee (2003); Cracked was his primary professional home for roughly 45 years.
- The issue is preserved in a full digital scan in the Internet Archive's Cracked Magazine collection (identifier: cracked-258-1990), making it accessible to researchers.
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Cracked Blockbuster #5 (1991), Cracked Collectors' Edition #88 (1991), Cracked Collectors' Edition #89 (1992), Cracked Blockbuster #6 (1992), Cracked Summer Special #2 (1992), Cracked Summer Special #3 (1993), Super Cracked #7 (1993), Super Cracked #8 (1994), Cracked Spaced Out #4 (1994), Cracked Collectors' Edition #101 (1995), Cracked Collectors' Edition #102 (1995), Cracked Collectors' Edition #105 (1996), Super Cracked #12 (1996), Cracked Collectors' Edition #106 (1996), Cracked Collectors' Edition #107 (1996), Cracked Summer Special #6 (1996), Super Cracked #11 (1996), Cracked Collectors' Edition #109 (1997), Super Cracked #14 (1997), Super Cracked #13 (1997), Cracked Collectors' Edition #115 (1998), Cracked Collectors' Edition #117 (1999), Cracked Collectors' Edition #118 (1999), Cracked Collectors' Edition #125 (2000)
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