Crazy Magazine #3

History

Crazy Magazine was launched in July 1973 under editor Marv Wolfman, who shaped its editorial identity as a deliberate blend of Mad's pop-culture spoofing and National Lampoon's sharper, more satirical voice — a tension Wolfman himself acknowledged when he noted that he and Stan Lee 'sort of split the difference.' By issue #3, the magazine was distributed through Curtis Magazines (which handled the first fourteen issues) and had settled into its black-and-white, oversized format that exempted it from Comics Code restrictions. The issue went on sale in January 1974, right as the Watergate crisis was consuming the Nixon White House, a fact the editorial staff folded directly into the magazine's humor. Wolfman's practice of writing satirical contributor bios in each issue — continued here — gave even the credits pages a comedic texture that helped distinguish Crazy from its competitors.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published by Marvel Comics Group (distributed by Curtis Magazines); cover-dated March 1974, on sale January 3, 1974.
• Cover art painted by Frank Kelly Freas, the celebrated science-fiction illustrator who contributed painted covers to multiple early issues of the series.
• Editor Marv Wolfman assembled a broad creative roster for this issue including Steve Gerber, Larry Hama, Ralph Reese, Roy Thomas, Jean Thomas, Marie Severin, Mort Drucker, Bob Foster, Vic Martin, John Stevens, Lee Marrs, and Dick Wright.
• The Steve Gerber–scripted, Larry Hama–penciled, Ralph Reese–inked parody of Rolling Stone magazine was considered strong enough to be reprinted in Crazy Magazine #64 (July 1980).
• Roy and Jean Thomas scripted a parody of Mad Magazine's 'Spy vs. Spy' strip, featuring the magazine's own mascot The Nebbish alongside the White Spy and Black Spy — one of Crazy's early attempts to position its mascot as a peer of rival humor-mag icons.
• A fumetti-style piece parodying National Lampoon's 'Foto Funnies' (scripted by Roy and Jean Thomas) was later reprinted in the Crazy Super Special #1 (Summer 1975), indicating its editorial popularity.
• The issue's inside front cover uses a White House photograph (credited to United Press International) as the backdrop for a topical gag about Nixon's Watergate-era administration departures — one of the sharper pieces of political commentary in the magazine's early run.
• A satirical Marvel interoffice memo from Wolfman to Stan Lee, framed as the 'Marvel Comics Enemies List,' appears in the issue — a meta-joke that riffed on the real Nixon Enemies List that had become front-page news in 1973.

Full credits

Key issues in Crazy Magazine

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#19 1st appearance — Jimmy Carter

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#63 1st appearance — Obnoxio the Clown