BEWARE OF IMITATIONS!

Mad Magazine inspired a wave of lookalikes from publishers who perceived the new phenomenon of Mad as merely a comic book, and weren't they in the comic book business after all?  And a black-and-white comic book at that: apparently, the readers would accept comic book content without comic book color, thus saving that much trouble and expense.
It was vital to entitle the new enterprise with a vague synonym for "mad" or "crazy," like, well, Crazy. Or Nuts. Or Cracked. Or Frantic.

Frantic attempted to engage in a price war by rolling out 68 pages for the same quarter as Mad. The editors of Mad found it tough enough to manage 48 pages of top-notch topical material. Frantic employed speed demons like Ric Estrada to widen the gap.

Mad, of course, is celebrating sixty years of Alfred E. Neuman gracing its covers. Frenzy had a serial relationship with a "mascot" who oddly resembled Ernie Kovacs, the tv pioneer who was a big part of Mad's DNA as well as an actual contributor.

Lunatickle was published by Myron Fass, who was also responsible for the gory horror magazines Weird and Tales of Voodoo. Despite his company's reputation for schlock, Lunatickle is one of the most readable and consistently high quality of the Mad clones, with contributors like Joe Kubert working at the top of their game. Comedy writer Jack Mendelsohn, who later created the comic strip Jacky's Diary and worked on the screenplay for the Beatles' animated film Yellow Submarine did strong work here. The magazine didn't last. Fass maintained that the first issue was an enormous hit but "was dead by the third," according to an interview in the Village Voice. Maybe the inexplicable gags on their covers were a factor?

Elvis Presley entered the army: who will replace him in the hearts of his fans? A great subject for humor, it became the basis of Bye Bye Birdie. The rest of the magazine's attempts will leave you scratching your head just as Elvis does here. Further, if you're not gonna run with a synonym for Mad, how about a title everyone can pronounce?

Hillman Periodicals gave the world Pageant magazine, as well as well-remembered, well-regarded Golden Age adventure titles like Air Fighters Comics and Airboy Comics, from which sprang the great old character the Heap, who Mad appropriated in an early issue for its "Outer Sanctum" parody, and who kinda fathered an illegitimate child: the Swamp Thing. They also released Who Goofed? It lasted two issues and seemed like a warmed-over version of Ballyhoo, or worse, a parody of Pageant and all the other magazines in its stable. A subhead on the contents page reads: "Who Goofed? For Those Who Don't Care." Yes, precisely.