Crazy Magazine #19
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeCrazy Magazine #19 (August 1976) represents Marvel's humor magazine arm operating at its mid-run sweet spot, deploying the oversized, black-and-white, Comics Code-exempt format to lampoon one of the biggest pop-culture events of that summer: the Dino De Laurentiis King Kong remake, which opened in December 1976 and was already dominating movie-magazine coverage months in advance. The issue also squeezes in a political cartoon rounding up the entire crowded 1976 presidential field — Carter, Ford, Reagan, Kennedy, and more — making it a compact time capsule of mid-1970s American anxiety refracted through satire. While #19 introduced no lasting characters, it exemplifies how Crazy used the magazine format's freedoms to react faster and more sharply to current events than a Code-bound comic book could.
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By issue #19, Crazy Magazine had settled under the full editorial control of Paul Laikin — a Brooklyn-born comedy writer who had previously contributed to Mad Magazine and written material for television comedians including Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle. Laikin took over with issue #16 (having used the pen name 'Paul Lamont' for #15) and would hold the editor-in-chief chair all the way through issue #60. The magazine was published by Magazine Management Co. (Marvel's magazine imprint) rather than under the Curtis Magazines arrangement used for the first fourteen issues, and its oversized black-and-white format deliberately placed it outside Comics Code Authority jurisdiction, giving Laikin room for unfiltered political and pop-culture satire.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: August 1976; release date (per GCD): June 1, 1976; published by Marvel Comics (Magazine Management Co.).
- Lead feature is titled 'Kink Konk' — a parody of the 1976 Dino De Laurentiis King Kong film, timed to ride the massive pre-release publicity wave for that movie.
- The issue also contains a political cartoon or sidebar featuring an ensemble of 1976 U.S. presidential candidates and figures, including Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Ted Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Edmund Muskie, Henry Jackson, and Morris Udall, as well as a Howard the Duck appearance.
- Edited by Paul Laikin, a veteran comedy writer with prior credits at Mad Magazine and in television, who edited Crazy from #16 through #60 under his own name (having used the pen name 'Paul Lamont' for issue #15 only).
- Published in the black-and-white oversized magazine format Marvel adopted to sidestep Comics Code Authority restrictions, allowing broader satirical and mature-humor content.
- Part of Crazy Magazine's 94-issue run (1973–1983), the longest-running humor magazine Marvel ever published, working in the tradition of Mad, Cracked, and National Lampoon.
- No first appearances of lasting characters occur in this issue; its significance is topical and contextual rather than continuity-driven.
- The series as a whole was later referenced in The Simpsons episode 'Separate Vocations,' cementing its place in Bronze Age pop-culture memory.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Crazy Magazine #30 (1977), Crazy Magazine #37 (1978), Crazy Magazine #61 (1980), Marvel Masterworks: Howard the Duck #1 (2020)
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