The print re-launch of Mad Magazine spinoff Cracked has folded after three issues. Editor Jay Pinkerton's obligatory "we're-shutting-down" email (somebody should anthologize these things into a handsome coffee-table book) blames "distribution issues and the publishing industry as a whole [which] made publishing a bi-monthly comedy magazine unviable." The website survives, though it's not quite among the online comedy heavy-hitters traffic-wise.
Cracked relaunched in August after a year-and-a-half hiatus thanks to the efforts of Monty Sarhan, a lawyer with long-time comedy aspirations. He recruited well-known writers like Michael Ian Black and Neal Pollack. We have a feeling that the Cracked brand identity may not have served the re-launch well. Do grown-up adult people who like The Onion and so forth really want to buy a magazine they may have read when they were pre-teens? And do pre-teens care about magazine humor these days? Anyway, raise a glass (of Ovaltine, or Red Bull, or Hypnotiq, or whatever alienated twelve-year-olds drink nowadays) for Cracked.
