The evil clown is a subversion of the traditional comic clown character, in which the playful trope is instead rendered as disturbing through the use of horror elements and dark humor. The modern archetype of the evil clown was popularized by DC Comics character the Joker starting in 1940 and again by Pennywise in Stephen King's 1986 novel It. The character can be seen as playing off the sense of unease felt by sufferers of coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.
Crazy Magazine is an illustrated satire and humor magazine that was published by Marvel Comics from 1973 to 1983 for a total of 94 regular issues. It was preceded by two standard-format comic books titled Crazy. The magazine's format followed in the tradition of Mad, Sick, Cracked and National Lampoon.
The All-Star Squadron is a DC Comics superhero team that debuted in Justice League of America #193 and was created by Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler and Jerry Ordway.
Doom Patrol is a superhero team from DC Comics. The original Doom Patrol first appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80, and was created by writers Arnold Drake and Bob Haney, and artist Bruno Premiani. Doom Patrol has appeared in different incarnations in multiple comics, and have been adapted to other media. Although not one of the most popular superhero teams, they have never been out of print for more than a few years since their introduction.
Nicholas Bakay is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer and sportscaster. He is known as the voice of Salem Saberhagen on ABC/The WB's Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Sabrina: The Animated Series, and Norbert Beaver on The Angry Beavers. He played Karl on the Fox series 'Til Death as well as serving as a producer of the show until it was cancelled by Fox. He is also one of the executive producers of the CBS sitcom Mom.
The Walrus is a comedic supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is the enemy of Spider-Man and Frog-Man.
Kyle John Baker is an American cartoonist, comic book writer-artist, and animator known for his graphic novels and for a 2000s revival of the series Plastic Man.
Empire State University is a fictional university in the Marvel Comics Universe. It is located somewhere in New York City, in Greenwich Village near the site of New York University. Many Marvel Comics characters, especially those associated with Spider-Man, have either attended or worked at the university. It first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #31.
Showcase is a comic anthology series published by DC Comics. The general theme of the series was to feature new and minor characters as a way to gauge reader interest in them, without the difficulty and risk of featuring untested characters in their own ongoing titles. Showcase is regarded as the most successful of such tryout series, having been published continuously for more than 14 years, launching numerous popular titles, and maintaining a considerable readership of its own. The series ran from March–April 1956 to September 1970, suspending publication with issue #93, and then was revived for eleven issues from August 1977 to September 1978.
Violator is a fictional supervillain, who appears in the Spawn comic books published by Image Comics. The character first appeared in Spawn #2 and was created by writer-artist Todd McFarlane. He is by far the most recurring villain of the series and Spawn's archenemy. He is also the maker of the Hellspawns, hence why he trains them and keeps tabs on them.
Paul Kupperberg is a writer and executive editor at Charlton Neo Comics and Pix-C Webcomics, and a contributing author with Crazy 8 Press. Formerly, he was an editor for DC Comics and executive editor of Weekly World News, as well as a writer of novels, comic books, and newspaper strips.
E-Man is a comic-book character: a superhero created by writer Nicola Cuti and artist Joe Staton for the American company Charlton Comics in 1973. Though the character's original series was short-lived, the lightly humorous hero has become a cult classic occasionally revived by different independent comics publishers. The character was originally owned by Charlton but was eventually transferred to its creators.
Salem Saberhagen is a fictional character from the American Archie Comics comic series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Salem is an American Shorthair cat who lives with Sabrina Spellman, Hilda Spellman and Zelda Spellman in the fictional town of Greendale, located near Riverdale. A former witch, Salem was sentenced by the Witch's Council to spend 100 years as a cat, as punishment for trying to take over the world. Salem first appeared alongside Sabrina in Archie's Mad House #22 in 1962, and was created by George Gladir and Dan DeCarlo.
Obnoxio the Clown is a character in the Marvel Comics humor magazine Crazy and served as its mascot. He was created by Larry Hama.
Alan Kupperberg was an American comics artist known for working in both comic books and newspaper strips.
Ghosts is a horror comics anthology series published by DC Comics for 112 issues from September–October 1971 to May 1982. Its tagline was "True Tales of the Weird and Supernatural", changed to "New Tales of the Weird and Supernatural," as of #75, and dropped after #104.
Frenchie or Frenchy is a term for a person from France, sometimes in a derogatory manner.
Mary Skrenes is a comic book writer and screenwriter. She may be best known as co-creator of Omega the Unknown for Marvel Comics, although she worked on other Marvel characters such as the Defenders and Guardians of the Galaxy. She was the creator of and inspiration for Beverly Switzler, the companion of Howard the Duck. For Omega the Unknown, Skrenes created the supporting characters Amber Grant and Dian Wilkins. She published a number of horror stories for DC under the name Virgil North, and began a long collaboration with Steve Skeates. According to Skeates, a number of his mystery stories were actually co-written with Skrenes, but she insisted on submitting them under Skeates's name alone because of bad blood between her and editor Joe Orlando.
"Superduperman" is a satirical story by Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood that was published in the fourth issue of Mad. Lampooning both Superman and Captain Marvel, it revolutionized the types of stories seen in Mad, leading to greatly improved sales. Writers such as Alan Moore have cited this story as an influence.
