A review of
If You’re Cracked, You’re Happy
By Mark Arnold,
2 volumes
Published by BearManor Media
Yes, as stated on its cover, this book is “A history of the world’s 2nd greatest humor mazagine! (sic)” And in full disclosure, I wrote for Cracked for several years starting in 1997 yet was woefully ignorant of the history of the place I was working at. Now, after reading the books, not so much.
There is a lot of history to cover (40+ years) and a lot of covers to cover.
The magazine index is remarkable. A list to every issue ever issued, listing authors and artists with a cross reference for items that were re-printed, and noting first appearances of recurring characters and premises and key artists. It also makes up the bulk of each of the 2 volumes, which somehow gives the impression he did the history of Cracked just to have something to fill out the index with.
The author knows his humor magazines and certainly lays out the history of published humor B.C. (Before Cracked) well. And he knows the history of Cracked’s MADversary, Mad magazine, which comes in handy as the two magazines had a lot of overlap when it comes to topics, artists and writers.
There are a lot of re-prints of representative pages from Cracked, although most of them are too small to read the words. Which as a writer I kind of resented.
While I have no doubt that Arnold knows his subject, I was a bit dismayed to learn that the “history” touted in the subtitle of the book was an oral history. Arnold did interviews via email with his subjects (myself included) and then basically copied and pasted those emails into the text of the books, odd spacing, typos, emoticons and all. Really? We’re going to include the guy’s “LOL?”
When a subject is discussed–like how Cracked hired Don Martin away from Mad or how American Media (publishers of the National Enquirer tabloid) wound up buying Cracked–you feel as if you are reading hearsay and gossip. Many of the quotes begin with phrases like “I heard—” or “I don’t know if you talked about this to—” and each person gets to give his take on it. Sometimes they agree, sometimes not. Sometimes they’re guessing. I really felt like this was a cheat, that the author really wasn’t looking to dig into some situations and figured if he threw enough opinions at the wall, a c ensuses would stick. Also, there’s a great deal of repetition because of this method. After you read Barry Dutter’s version of the sale of Cracked, do we need to read Gary Fields’, Bruce Boligner’s Michelina Severin’s and Lou Silverstone’s version? Or former editor/publisher Dick Kulpa’s long, rambling entries? Or mine? Condense. Edit. Whittle. The author needed to insert himself into the process more and not just hang the history on the interviewees. Or put them in order and lose the overlap.
The final version of Cracked (the Sahran issues) is barely covered, basically re-printing the press release announcing the “new” Cracked and the later press release announcing the death of the “new” Cracked. And really, did we need to read the emails by the new owners of Cracked.com querying about the book’s intent? It’s them asking the author questions instead of the other way around.
To me, the most interesting times of anything are its beginnings and its endings. The downward spiral is pretty well covered, but when it comes to the final nails in the coffin, I felt cheated. No comments from the last staffers, no “What were they thinking?” moments. There’s not much acknowledgment of the post-publishing website that still exists. It really appears that the present staff doesn’t want to be part of it at all.
As for the whole “where are they now?” section? Man, if I’d known he was just going to print my email answers verbatim, I would have written longer, wackier responses to his questions. Also, as is the nature of the comics industry, there’s a lot more emphasis on the artists than the writers. Yeah, yeah, personal bias. So sue me.
It’s published by a small press, so the quality of the book is lacking; soft cover, no color re-prints. Flimsy paper. And the fact that it is expanded over 2 volumes makes the set pricey, although you can do what I did and ask for it as a birthday or Christmas present. I mean, if your family loves you they’ll buy it, right?
In the end, though, I was happy to read the books. I’m happy that a book like this exists. The original prints of Cracked have been lost. They never succeeded in creating CD-ROMs containing every issue. They never got a TV show off the ground. So this may very well be the magazine’s only legacy. Cracked had a long and funny run. Its demise was sad because it feels like it didn’t need to go that way. You get a sense that the magazine didn’t wind down, but that it was put down by a publisher that couldn’t be bothered and that it was cast adrift at a time when the publishing world was undergoing a seismic shift and forced to fend for itself. I miss the magazine; it was a joy to be published in a national venue. It was an honor to have my ideas and bits brought to life by artists like John Severin, Gary Fields and Tom Richmond. So, despite the shortcomings, I’m happy there’s “If You’re Cracked, You’re Happy.”