CRACKED Cover Reference #3

Here's the final installment of these CRACKED magazine cover reference posts. In the last official "Kulpa/Mega Media" issue and the last "Real" CRACKED magazine as a visual satirical humor magazine. This was without a doubt a huge honor for CRACKED as this cover was painted by non other than the legendary Sci Fi artist Kelly Freas, who had been MAD magazine's cover artist for many years during Norman Mingo's hiatus. Kelly also drew the covers to the 1st half dozen CRAZY magazines by Marvel which came out in the early '70's. With Marie Severin serving as Art Director and a brief appearance by Mort Drucker in issue #3, CRAZY had a certain MAD feel early on, changing quite dramatically with a new cover mascot "Obnoxio" towards the end of its run. My connection to this magazine comes in the great Kent Gamble who did all the CRAZY parodies from issue #20 throughout the end of the run with issue #94, with his cover contributions to The Journal of MADness, THWAK, and CRACKED, as well as some interiors his art continues to inspire me. Check out the THWAK Bonfire of Insanity Collection trade paperback. (Incidentally only a handful of this cover are left - a brand new painting will adorn the cover when the book hits Amazon later).

One can see some elements from both the EXTRA and TIME magazine covers. I thought that Kelly really captured the "goofiness" of both men. Overall a nice cover, and most probably the lat piece of published art that Kelly produced before his death early the following year on Jan 2nd 2005. For a full interview with Kelly Freas and how he came to work at MAD - check out the aforementioned THWAK trade paperback book available on this site.