Scary Humor with Cracked’s For Monsters Only Magazine
I contributed this article, originally, to 70s Monster Memories, edited by Eric McNaughton (publisher of We Belong Dead magazine). I’m happy to say the book has gone into reprints.
In 1965, the neighborhood corner store’s magazine rack was filled with monster magazines and many freshly minted monster kids. Gorged on the zany, horror-host-hosted Shock! television packages of classic (and often spastic) horror and science fiction movies, monsterish humor was hotter than an angry villager’s sputtering torch. It would take maturing monsterkids in the 1970s to clamor for more sophisticated reading, but until then blame Vampira and Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland for making horror movies cool by poking a little fun, and a lot of puns, their way.
And also profitable. It didn’t’ take a mad scientist’s machinations to realize that by adding funny captions to movie photos (often already owned or loaned from the movie studios), you could easily fill up a magazine’s pages on the cheap.
Carrying this humor angle to the extreme was Cracked’s For Monsters Only: The Official Magazine for All Monsters! Begun in 1965, and running through to its 10th and last issue in 1972, its funny cartoons and illustrations, wacky John Severin drawn comics and covers, and wide assortment of crazy-captioned movie photos populated by aliens, monsters, and other assorted creatures (and their victims), were aimed at the reader’s funny bone instead of his or her jugular vein.
Never quite finding its circulation or format footing, the issues wavered between being overrun by Cracked-slanted cartoons, illustrations, and captioned photos, or nominally kept at bay by non-humorous content, like the The Secret Files of Marc Vangoro’s comic-illustrated stories, tossed in for the horror comics fan, and the informative articles, written by Richard Bojarski, which highlighted the notables of horror along with their movies.
By 1972, Cracked’s For Monster’s Only was doomed. More relevant magazines clamored for the corner store’s rack space, and avid readers, by appealing to the multi-genre fans emerging in the 1970s. Monster kid appetites were becoming more voracious, seasoned by the beginnings of the comic book and popular culture conventions, into devouring anything and everything comic books, horror movies, and science fiction and fantasy. Cracked’s For Monsters Only, whose content was never really enough to satisfy that appetite, and with its publication too sporadic to become more than a mouthful, would be left on the racks and lose its readership faster than a vampire could make a blood bank withdrawal.
But before its end came, the Cracked visual style, led by John Severin, would create an unforgettable visual mix of detail and exaggeration that would bring charm, fancifulness, and satire to the classic monsters that is still highly regarded today.
Following are some notes on each issue for your edification pleasure. …
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