Cracked #37
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeCracked #37 (July 1964) is a representative artifact from the magazine's formative bimonthly era, appearing just as John Severin was cementing his role as the publication's defining visual voice — his cover run had begun only two issues earlier with #35. The issue's ambitious comic-strip parody feature, which gathered cameos of more than twenty classic newspaper-strip characters under one roof, illustrates the broad cultural literacy Cracked demanded of its mid-1960s readership and demonstrates the magazine's ambition to distinguish itself from a simple Mad clone. As one of the last issues before Cracked shifted to a monthly schedule with #41 in January 1965, #37 also sits at a quiet inflection point in the title's publishing history.
In "Cracked Looks at Dee-Jays," the comic's signature satire turns its lens on the world of radio DJs, assembling a hilarious cross-section of beloved comic strip characters from across the pop culture landscape. From Beetle Bailey and Terry Lee to Dick Tracy and Archie Andrews, the issue brings together Servicemen, Detectives, Adventurers, and more in a playful, tongue-in-cheek lineup drawn with sharp wit by John Severin, whose distinctive style defines both the interior and the cover.
In this delightfully chaotic 1964 satire from Cracked #37, classic comic strip icons collide in a hilarious mash-up of genres and tropes. From Beetle Bailey and Terry Lee sharing a barracks to Archie Andrews chasing every female character across the strip universe, the entire pantheon of newspaper comics is thrown into one zany, overlapping world—where detectives solve cases with help from Nancy, and Tarzan swings through a strip filled with Peanuts and Katzenjammer Kids.
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Major Publications, founded by Robert C. Sproul in 1958, produced Cracked under the editorial stewardship of founding editor Sol Brodsky — a veteran Marvel/Atlas production man — who set the magazine's Mad-inflected template of parody strips and gag cartoons. By mid-1964, Cracked was still operating on a bimonthly newsstand schedule and drawing heavily on a small stable of reliable freelancers, with John Severin serving as the primary cover and interior artist after having been one of the founding cartoonists of Mad itself a decade earlier. The issue's interior roster — Severin, Bill McCartney (the pen name used by good-girl artist Bill Ward), Don Orehek, Pete Wyma, Vic Martin, Noel Klineman, and Bob Zahn — reflects the tight, recurring pool of contributors that kept Cracked's production costs manageable throughout this period.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published July 1964 by Major Publications (also known as Major Magazines), under publisher Robert C. Sproul.
- Cover and interior art by John Severin, who had begun his landmark Cracked cover run just two issues earlier with #35 (April 1964); his covers for the title would continue through #154 (October 1978).
- Interior art credits include Bill McCartney (a pen name for good-girl artist Bill Ward), Don Orehek, Pete Wyma, Vic Martin, Jack Tottwn, Noel Klineman, and Bob Zahn.
- Features a comic-strip parody piece with cameos of over twenty classic newspaper-strip and licensed characters, including Beetle Bailey, Mutt & Jeff, Popeye, Dick Tracy, Peanuts, Pogo, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Blondie, Tarzan, Superman, Archie, Little Orphan Annie, Dennis the Menace, Prince Valiant, the Lone Ranger, Mandrake the Magician, and others.
- Appeared during Cracked's bimonthly phase; the magazine would not transition to a monthly schedule until issue #41 in January 1965.
- Sol Brodsky — concurrently a production manager at Marvel Comics — had established the editorial formula the issue follows: Mad-style parody strips, gag cartoons, and pop-culture spoofs aimed at young readers.
- Cracked deliberately misspelled its own subtitle as 'Mazagine' on covers as a running gag, a quirk already in place by this issue.
- No dedicated key-issue designation for this specific issue has been identified in major collector databases (Key Collector Comics, GoCollect); it carries no documented first appearances or landmark story distinctions.
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Cracked #9 (1959), Cracked #15 (1960)
Reprinted in Cracked Again #M-146 (1965), For Monsters Only #3 (1966), Monster Howls #1 (1966), For Monsters Only Annual #1 (1967), Biggest Greatest Cracked #5 (1969), Super Cracked #2 (1969), Cracked Shut-Ups #2 (1972), Super Cracked #6 (1973), Biggest Greatest Cracked #13 (1978), Super Cracked #11 (1978), Giant Cracked #18 (1978), Cracked Collectors' Edition #[27] (1978), Cracked Collectors' Edition #41 (1981), Cracked Collectors' Edition #[57] (1984), Extra Special Cracked #9 (1985), Super Cracked #31 (1986), Super Cracked #32 (1986), Cracked Party Pack #2 (1988), Cracked Blockbuster #4 (1990), Cracked Collectors' Edition #125 (2000), Biggest Greatest Cracked #3
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