Snafu #1

History

Snafu was produced by Atlas Comics (one of Martin Goodman's publishing imprints, published under the Red Circle Magazines banner) and was edited and written primarily by Stan Lee, who had previously employed Harvey Kurtzman before the latter created Mad at EC Comics — making Snafu a case of the teacher attempting to outperform the student's invention. Lee launched the series precisely as Mad converted from comic-book to magazine format with its landmark 24th issue (July 1955), mirroring that format shift immediately; Snafu #1 shipped with a cover date of November 1955. Production was supervised by Marie Severin, with Joe Maneely and John Severin serving as the artistic anchors, and contributions from Bill Everett, Russ Heath, and Howie Post rounding out a who's-who of the Atlas humor stable. The run ended after only three issues (November 1955, January 1956, March 1956), its brief life reflecting the commercial reality that Mad's grip on the satire-magazine market was essentially unshakeable.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Irving Forbush (Earth-665), the fictional mascot credited on Snafu's contents page as the magazine's 'founder' — the character Stan Lee would later resurrect as Forbush-Man in Not Brand Echh (1967), with his full superhero origin delivered in Not Brand Echh #5 by Lee and Jack Kirby.
• Published by Atlas Comics under Martin Goodman's Red Circle Magazines imprint; cover-dated November 1955, with an on-sale/release date of July 29, 1955.
• Edited and written primarily by Stan Lee, who had previously been Harvey Kurtzman's boss at Timely/Atlas before Kurtzman went to EC and created Mad — giving Snafu an inherently ironic creative lineage.
• The magazine-format book (approximately 8.5 × 11 inches, 68 pages, black and white) deliberately mirrored Mad's own contemporaneous shift from comic-book to magazine format, debuting in direct competition with Mad's new presentation.
• Core artistic contributors to issue #1 include Joe Maneely, John Severin, Russ Heath, and Howie Post, with production overseen by Marie Severin; Bill Everett contributed to the run across its three issues.
• Issue #1 content included parodies of the hit film The Blackboard Jungle ('The Blackboard Forest' by Russ Heath) and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer detective novels, alongside ad spoofs and news parodies following the Mad playbook.
• The full three-issue run (Snafu #1–3, November 1955 – March 1956) was collected in its entirety for the first time in Fantagraphics' Atlas Comics Library No. 8: Snafu (2025), which also includes a history of Martin Goodman's humor publications by Atlas historian Dr. Michael J. Vassallo.
• Atlas had previously launched multiple other Mad imitators — including Crazy (1953–54), Wild (1954), and Riot (1954–56) — but Snafu, as Lee's most hands-on effort in the format, is regarded by historians as the strongest of that group.

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