Humor Magazines - WACKO

WACKO - Sept 1980 #1 - Oct 1981 #3 Ideal Publishing Co.

After Paul Laikin moved on from his involvement with CRAZY he and a number of CRAZY artists started this magazine which is virtually indistinguishable from earlier CRAZY magazines. Artists such as my buddy Kent Gamble, Murad Gumen (who did this great cover), Al Scaduto, Charles Nicholas, Tony Tallarico, Arnoldo Franchioni, Bill Burke, Vic Martin and writer Andy Lamberti had all contributed to CRAZY and many of them would continue their working relationship with Laikin when he moved to CRACKED later in the mid 80's.

Wacko would be the only new addition to the humor magazine field in the 80's. I believe that all 3 issues were 80 pages at $1.25 and may have been more than folks were willing to pay for a humor magazine as MAD was still .75c at this time.

CRACKED magazine concept art

Check out these two illustrations I did back in 2004. The one to the right with the dunce hat was a kind of a character study as I was trying to decide what the main illustration would be. The other piece was the final concept, taking place in a museum in the form of a parody of the famous statue of "The Thinker" called the "Unthinker". The script was submitted by veteran humor writer Andy Lamberti (CRAZY, CRACKED, WACKO and most recently THWAK) and was a list of what typically stands for DUMB.

As of yet it has never been published but you never know, one of these days?