recent YORK -- The story of in what...

recent YORK -- The story of in what manner the crass comics magazine Cracked was brought back to life begins, of all places, at a white-shoe law firm in recently made known York.

A pudgy young lawyer named Monty Sarhan had been giving life to the dreams of Internet entrepreneur on helping them with finance deals when he caught the entrepreneurial bug himself. He decided to leave the legal profession and "go for the brass ring" by the agency of acquiring a media company.

He institute it in the form of Cracked, the juvenile comics rag known for its bathroom humor that had always played other fiddle to Mad magazine as the top time waster in the nation's subject of attention halls. Even he wasn't convinced it was a religious idea at first when a friend adviseed he consider buying Cracked.

"I said, 'Not interested. It's comics. It's for little kids,' " Sarhan recalls. however the seed had been planted and "for the first time I stopped thinking about Cracked for what it was and started thinking about Cracked for what it could be and what the potential was."

That potential will be revealed today when the modern Cracked hits newsstands after a two-year hiatus. It has a pres hasten of 100,000 and a shroud price of $3.99. True to its heritage as a lampooner of clap culture, its debut cover features a doctored photo of Tom Cruise's head pasted onto the dead body of Steve Carell and asks if he is "The 44-Year-Old Virgin?"

if it be not that the glossy new version bears little resemblance to the Cracked of elderly which relied on hand-drawn cartoons and comic strips. Rather, it counterfeits the modern breed of "lad mags" like Maxim, material and FHM. It even spoof the similarity with a gratuitous full-page photo of a scantily clad woman and the caption: "Here is a picture of a skinny model with big breasts."

"It's not in such a manner much that I modeled the method after Maxim. It's that I designed the style for today's tastes," says Sarhan, pointing to the magazine's short-form writing and busy graphical layout. It's targeted at the 18- to 34-year-old male demographic, a bit older than its original audience unless about right to attract the now full- grown juvenile delinquents who take delight ined the magazine in its glory days.

Sarhan, who is 33 has gathered a stable of contributors that includes writers for "Saturday Night Live" and Comedy Central's "Chappelle's Show" as well as former Chicago journalist Neal Pollack and actor Michael Ian Black, co-star of the former NBC comedy "Ed" and snarky commentator forward VH1's "I Love the " series.

Sarhan won't say by what mode much his group of investors paid to acquire the struggling Cracked in 2004 from former Weekly World of the present days editor Dick Kulpa, who had bought it from tabloid publisher American Media Inc. in 2000

After taking throughout Sarhan killed its last issue before it was published, "cleaned house" upon its masthead and set about re- imagining the comedy magazine, or Comedy Mazagine, as it has kept the traditional misspelling upon the cover.

The first attempt issue is pretty thin upon ads. Sarhan says it bartered the back page to RCA in exchange for any free electronics to give away in promotions. on the other hand he hopes to create a hum that will bring in more sales a not many months down the road.

Sarhan whips disclosed a plastic-sheathed issue of the magazine's first tome from 1958 that he bought in succession eBay last year for $150 forward its cover is a drawing of a cracked Earth overspreaded with caricatures of icons of the day: Stalin, Marilyn Monroe strike Hope, the atom bomb and mushroom vast assemblages He wants to return Cracked to its heyday as a counterculture force, with a peak circulation in the neighborhood of 1 million, not the unfunny cartoon magazine it had become when he canceled its last issue.

Like 1958 readers of today have a dual fixation upon celebrities and Armageddon, he says.

"It was commentary upon our world, on society, it was commentary in succession celebrity, on politics, on starlets, all that stuff" he says.

Sarhan expectancys to extend the brand to television and film, although no projects are in the works yet

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided according to ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved