mad over 'crazy'

Back in the 1970s, Marvel Comics published a magazine called "Crazy" that was more or less its response to MAD Magazine, which is published by arch-rival DC Comics. I only ever saw one issue of "Crazy"; ironically, it was the final issue. It was amazingly clever, much funnier than I recall "Cracked" or "Mad" ever being.

The issue started off with the secret origin of Caspar the Friendly Ghost. In it, Caspar reveals to Wendy the Witch that his father killed both Caspar and Caspar's mother -- stabbed them to death, as I recall -- and told police that a madman had done it, so he could collect on their life insurance policies. Wendy and Caspar proceed to attack Caspar's father, who is living it up on the insurance money. He crashes his fancy car into a tree, and then Caspar kills him pretty gruesomely. Not a very pleasant story, but it was done so over-the-top and with the same innocent, clean style of illustration as the old Harvey Comics that I'm laughing just remembering it.

One of the other features was a rip-off on the Smurfs, featuring such standbys as Weak-Bladder Smurf. "Papa Smurf has to take a bath because I smurfed on him!" he proudly declares, which remains my all-time favorite smurf line.

Then there was a spoof they did of some of the old Avengers comics around the time of the Kree-Skrull War back in the early 1970s. As I recall, the story was that the Skrulls had kidnapped a cow that the Vision had fallen in love with. Great send-up of the Avengers, with the original artwork intact:

"That's it, Captain America! Throw away your shield -- your only means of defending yourself against these far more powerful bad guys."

"Just don't think of pulling these ridiculously long and exposed cables that obviously supply our power."

"Are you going to hit them with your repulsor rays?"

"Nah, I'm just going to skate around in a silly pose."

And the closing feature was the battle of Captain Contradiction and the Evil Gainsayer: "I almost got you there." "No you didn't." "Yes I did." "No you didn't."

And so on. Ah, good old Crazy. Too bad I found out about it at the very end of its existence. I would have enjoyed it a lot more.