OK, no more Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers spoofs!
For now!
This never-reprinted tale was the final story in the final issue of Crazy!
While the story's not a classic, it's not bad, either!
The amazingly versatile Joe Maneely handled the art fro this never=reprinted tale from Atlas' Crazy V1N7 (1954), but the script is not by Stan Lee...who would've had his name on it if he had written the tale!
Maneely could do anything; sci-fi, horror, war, romance, western, even humor, as this story demonstrates!
If not for his tragic death by falling from a moving commuter train, he would have been one of the major talents of Marvel Comics in the 1960s.
Atlas had no less than three MAD clones going at once; Crazy, Wild, and Riot!
MAD themselves commented on the proliferation of clones, not only from Atlas, but virtually every other publisher with this opener for their spoof of the 1950s movie Julius Ceasar by Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood...
When MAD converted to a b/w magazine, Atlas dropped the three color comics and launched the b/w Snafu,which only lasted three issues!
Atlas/Marvel would revive Crazy twice more!
First, in early 1973 as a reprint book of Not Brand Echh stories.
Then, in late 1973 as a b/w magazine going head-to-head with MAD, and surviving until 1983 for 96 issues!
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This is a great find. Thanks for posting. You're right about the script. It's kind of like one of E.C.'s Panic scripts. A series of gags is still fun.
ReplyDeleteManeely's art is influenced by Harvey Kurtzman in a really good way. He just applies his own style to that chicken-fat aesthetic.
People talk of how Maneely would've been making Marvel super-heroes, but maybe he would've eventually worked at Mad if he didn't die in 1958.