The Comedy of John Severin

The Comedy of John Severin: Introduction by Mark Arnold Afterword by Mort Todd by John Severin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Comedy of John Severin is a collection of stories drawn by John Severin for Cracked in 1958 through 1969.

There were a couple years when I was a kid that I was heavily into Mad and Cracked, starting around the time the Tim Burton Batman movie came out and petering out around the time I went into high school and my mom sold them at a yard sale a couple years later. I stumbled upon this while looking for John Severin westerns for Western Comics Month.

Jaunty John was the workhorse of Cracked, contributing to a majority of the magazine's 300+ issues. The material in this collection was largely pulled from Giant Cracked #46, itself a compilation of John Severin stories from years past.

First off, the art looks great. Jovial John tackles a variety of topics in a variety of styles. Some of the stories resemble his EC work, some veering more toward caricature, some more realistic, and still others in a generic cartoony style. He also experimented with charcoal and probably zipatone, duoshade, or similar products. Nearly dead neurons that hadn't fired in years were going off as I checked out the master's work.

As for the stories, grab on to something because I'm going to do a lot of backseat driving on this. I question the choice of the stories on this. Because of the age of the material, a lot of the jokes don't land quite right. For example, while I like the concept of President Lyndon Johnson riding around the old west dressed as the Lone Ranger, I only understood about half of the references. I have similar gripes with the Steve Allen show and a couple of the other features. Many of the strips are firmly rooted in the time they were published. While some of the topics were timeless, like crooked politicians and marital problems, a lot of them wouldn't be that funny to anyone under the age of 60. How much humor am I supposed to find in Alaska becoming a state?

I have to think this would attract more readers if it had been more recent Severin work that dealt with topics people still care about, like Star Wars or super heroes or things of that nature and not using Giant Cracked #46 as the main source just because it was handy.

And for the other piece of bread in this compliment sandwich, the presentation was pretty good for 50+ year old material. The paper is much sturdier than both Mad or Cracked was printed on when I was buying it, like newsprint's more robust cousin. The reproduction looks how I remember actual issues looking back in the day so no complaints in that department. I also did find a lot of the material to be pretty funny despite its age. I guess shit head politicians and sick humor never go out of style.

While some of the material is 40+ years past its expiration date, The Comedy of John Severin is an interesting look at the early tenure of John Severin at Cracked magazine. 3 out of 5 stars.

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