Rick Nielsen was CRACKED!

This is the cover to CRACKED #363 that I had mentioned in the last post. It features a variety of Rock/Pop Stars at that point in time as well as Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen who as of this issue was declared Publisher of CRACKED. This was purely a move on Dick Kulpa's part to try and garner some publicity for the magazine. Unfortunately it did not seem to cause any interest. Oh well it was an attempt at least!

This issue was signed by Rick Nielsen himself. He actually signed about 10 that we added to a few magazine racks with the regular copies in a few places around the country. There had been a number of message board posts on the CRACKED boards letting fans know that they may be lucky and find an autographed copy on their local newsstands. I wonder how many were actually sold?

Promoting THWAK - Editing CRACKED

Here's a picture of Ben Boling (artist extraordinaire) and myself at the Atlanta Comic Con back in 2004. I had already acquired space to promote THWAK many months earlier when I found out that Dick Kulpa (CRACKED magazine owner) was also going to be set up at the show. It was to be the second and final time that I would actually meet with him, the first time being some months earlier at his home and CRACKED headquarters in Florida, where we decided upon some of the material for the 1st issue that I was involved with( #362).

At this particular meeting I had the pleasure of working on editing the dummy copy from the printers of our next issue #363 which incidentally Dick had blown up the cover to as a backdrop to his booth at the show. It looked spectacular! - Kent Gamble got lots of Kudos that day as his cover to THWAK #4 (see the pic) was also on display. The great thing about this day was the fact that I was able to view the whole book prior to it going to the printers and make any necessary adjustments, correct any grammatical errors etc. This would be the only time that happened and I felt that this particular issue stands apart from the rest in that sense because of it.

While at the show Dick got to meet some of the other great local artists now at CRACKED like Ben Boling, Dave Newton and Anthony Owsley.

THWAK cake mmmmm good!

Shortly after THWAK #1 magazine came out my brother and sister in law had this "special" Birthday cake made for me. I guess I disproved the old saying that "you can't have your cake and eat it too".

A "Worried" Alfred?

I was given this original art by ex- CRACKED magazine owner/CEO Dick Kulpa during the time that I was involved with the magazine. As you can see Dick is an accomplished artist in his own right. One of the things he would do to promote CRACKED is attend various Comic Book Conventions and set up a booth with product while also doing caricatures. This item was one of his samples.

Incidentally Dick Kulpa was editor at Weekly World news when they acquired "The Globe Newspaper" and all its subsidiaries (including CRACKED magazine) back in 2000. Dick ended up as editor until he bought CRACKED. I am currently writing a piece for The Journal of MADness on this subject. There is also a book in the works on the history of CRACKED coming out next year. More to come...

Unused JOKESTER #2 piece

While Mike and I were just finishing up JOKESTER #1 we were starting to accumulate material for a follow up issue. One idea was to have a jam session with a bunch of artists, similar to the one I did for "The Osbournes vs Your Parents" in THWAK #5. This premise was to be called "Helpful Hints" and be presented as if in a series of informative announcements. Again, unfortunately this is yet another example of great art that no one would have ever seen. I wonder how much finished art/premises have been left unpublished over the years between all the prior humor magazines. The amount must be staggering!

The above art was done by Mike Arnold.

MAD magazine Displays

Here are some pictures from back in '99 of me in my studio/toy room. Most of my MAD collection has long since been sold off, although I do still have a decent amount of vintage magazines and records with art by the UGOI left if anyone is interested.

I wanted to be able to rotate my wall of magazines so I ended up using wire shelf racks. The edge/lip on the ends were perfect for standing the books up. The nice thing about this was that the "scenary" could be completely changed whenever I was ready for something else. Here are a few of the many wall displays, including all Mingo covers, Rickard, Don Martin, Mort Drucker and a variety of record album covers by MAD alumni.

The room has morphed many times over the years, at one point literally every square inch from floor to ceiling (including the ceiling) was covered with a variety of toys, artwork, magazines and posters. It has since been "tamed down" a bit. More to come.

Cannibal illo

A spot illustration accompanying the 2 page CANNIBAL ALERT spread from THWAK #1