Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Fantagraphics, Marvel Comics, Stan Lee | Tagged: atlas comics, Snafu

Fantagraphics to Publish Stan Lee's Snafu in 2025

Fantagraphics to publish Stan Lee, John Severin, Bill Everett and Joe Maneely's Mad Magazine wannabe Snafu in 2025

Published Sun, 15 Dec 2024 05:57:08 -0600

by Rich Johnston

Comments

Article Summary

Fantagraphics to release Stan Lee's satirical comic Snafu in 2025.
Snafu was a short-lived Atlas Comics satire with Marvel's top humorists.
The collection includes classics like "The Blackboard Forest" and "Drugnet."
This hardcover edition offers a full Snafu collection with historical insights.

Snafu was a short-lived satirical comic book published by Atlas Comics, the company that would one day be called Marvel Comics. It included the first appearance of Irving Forbush, the alter ego of Forbush Man, credited as Snafu's founder and created by Stan Lee, which he would later reintroduce into a Marvel Comics proper parody, Not Brand Ecchh a decade later drawn by Jack Kirby. An attempt to seize on the popularity of Stan Lee's former employee Harvey Kurtzman's Mad Magazine, only three issues of Snafu were published in 1955 and 1956, and included other Marvel comics stalwarts such as John Severin, Bill Everett and Joe Maneely. Next year, Fantagraphics is to collect all three issues in a hardcover for the first time, as part of their Atlas Comics Library, collecting comics that Marvel themselves have no interest in republishing…

"Marvel in a Mad mode! The complete 1955 Snafu magazine collected for the first time, featuring satire by John and Marie Severin, Russ Heath, Joe Maneely, Stan Lee and others in a gorgeous new package! When Harvey Kurtzman and Bill Gaines launched EC's Mad comic book as a warmly received satirical magazine, a flood of imitators soon filled newsstands, but the first and best to follow in Mad's footsteps (coinciding with the second issue of Mad magazine) was Snafu, edited and written by Kurtzman's former boss: Stan "The Man" Lee! Snafu was packed with Marvel/Atlas' top humor creators and, following the Mad playbook, filled pages with ad and news spoofs, alongside film, television, and book parodies like "The Blackboard Forest" by Russ Heath, "Pete Kelsey's Booze" and "Bleed, You Bum!" by Joe Maneely, "Drugnet" by Howie Post, "Emily Toast's Etiquette Page" by John Severin, and "Snafu's Lovely Ladies" by Bill Everett, with production supervised by Marie Severin. Seen here is some of the most eye-popping work of Maneely's short life, including great Hollywood caricatures done in a wash style. In this new volume in our Atlas Library collaboration with Marvel, Fantagraphics is tickled pink to present for the first time, the complete Snafu collection along with a history of Martin Goodman's humor publications in all genres by editor Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. Black-and-white illustrations throughout."