If You’re Cracked, You’re Happy

Sylvester P. Smythe was Cracked's 'janitor.'

Mark Arnold’s If You’re Cracked, You’re Happy is not just the best book about the history of Cracked magazine, it’s near certain to be the only book about it. “Did anyone besides me wonder or care?” Los Gatos’ Arnold asks. Cracked was Mad magazine’s most long-lasting rival. In fact, writing or drawing for Cracked meant instant blacklisting from Mad. Cracked editor Mort Todd, a major source for the book, said, “Yeah, Bill Gaines hated us. He must have figured every issue we sold was $1.49 out of his own pocket.”

Cracked survived almost 50 years, while never being what most people would call funny. It is back in the public eye as the sire of a highly witty website, whose current management wouldn’t talk to Arnold about the magazine. No respect. Still, Cracked got them on the way up and the way down: Spider-Man creator Steve Ditko, Dan Clowes and Peter Bagge all worked there. Mostly, John Severin was the magazine’s workhorse, sometimes drawing 50 pages an issue.

Cracked’s biggest fish was “Mad’s Maddest Artist,” the late-career Don Martin. If, as artist Jack Davis said, “low prestige and low pay” was the lot of the Cracked contributor, at least Martin was at long last able to license and sell his own art work in his sunset years, which was not the case at Mad, Arnold writes.

Of the two volumes, the second has the more boggling tales of the fringes of publishing. As the new century begins, the tottering Cracked sprouts typos galore and seeks relevance by becoming a lad’s magazine. And it elbows aside venerable white-clad mascot Sylvester P. Smythe in favor of a hulking Jersey thug with a sideways baseball cap. This cartoon bruiser is seen advertising stickers in 2001: “Phat Cracked Collector Signs with ’Tude!”

Cracked’s own modest budget is reflected in these two volumes’ production values. Illustrating material is tiny and sometimes distorted with moiré, and the editing is hasty. Still, the book includes the most thorough checklist of Cracked’s features ever made, and a “Where are they now” section.

If You’re Cracked, You’re Happy
By Mark Arnold
Two volumes, $34.95 each
Bear Manor Media

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