Comedy

In 1985, Mort Todd became editor of Cracked magazine at age 23. In 1987, Cracked made waves in the comic industry by seemingly raiding cartoonist Don Martin from Mad, after Martin's 32-year career there While Martin had already left Mad due to a business dispute months earlier, it was still a coup to obtain the services of "Mad's Maddest Artist".Martin worked for Cracked for about six years, and the magazine, in a tweak at its rival, billed him as "Cracked's Crackedest Artist". Cracked's concurrent attempt to sign Mad's caricaturist Mort Drucker was unsuccessful, but the magazine did acquire longtime Mad contributor Lou Silverstone as editor and writer. Former Mad associate editor Jerry DeFuccio also worked at Cracked for a short period.Though Cracked's sales always lagged far behind those of Mad, Cracked survived and thrived for over four decades through low pay rates and overhead, and by being part of large publishing groups that could bundle Cracked in with its other magazines as a package arrangement for distributors. Cracked also appeared monthly during the period when Mad was being published just 8 times a year, thus picking up readership from Mad fans that couldn't wait out the six weeks for their next "comedy fix." The magazine would sometimes include attention-grabbing giveaways inside its pages, such as iron-ons, stickers or postcards.In the 1990s, Cracked also benefited from the collapse of the National Lampoon, picking up Andy Simmons as an editor, as well as such former Lampoon contributors as Ron Barrett, Randy Jones and Ed Subitzky.