Scott Gosar
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Scott Gosar (b. July 22, 1966 in Waukegan, Illinois) is an American satirist and entrepreneur best known as the founder of The MAD Store.Com, the Internet's premier resource destination for humor magazine collectors, and for his brief stint as the final Editor of CRACKED magazine's (or "mazagine's" ) 47-year run as a cartoon art-based "family-friendly" humor publication. His tenure immediately preceded CRACKED's early 2005 sale to a group of Asian, Arab and American investors and CRACKED's August 2006 reemergence (and February 2007 cancellation after 3 issues) as an ultra-slick, text-and-photo-heavy young adults' comedy fanzine targeting 18-34-year old males.
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[edit] Early Career
On July 11, 2000, Gosar "anti-established" The MAD Store.Com, a website devoted solely to the worldwide sale and promotion of humor magazines such as Mad, CRACKED, Crazy, Sick and National Lampoon. Not long after The MAD Store.Com began to garner attention on the World Wide Web, Gosar was contacted by artist Marten Jallad, owner and publisher of an upstart humor magazine called THWAK whose freelance roster included ex-Crazy and CRACKED artist Kent Gamble, CRACKED and Hustler artists Art Bouthillier and Noel Anderson and Mad and CRACKED writers Jay Lynch and Andy Lamberti, and eventual Mad contributors Huw Evans and Kit Lively. Gosar's first-ever piece of published humor was entitled "Some 'Anne-isms' We'll Never Hear on 'The Weakest Link'", and appeared in THWAK # 2. He went on to contribute material to every subsequent issue of THWAK until the magazine's cessation of publication with issue # 5.
In 2001, The MAD Store.Com caught the attention of CRACKED webmaster Mark Van Woert, who introduced Gosar to then CRACKED editor Barry Dutter and former CRACKED owner/publisher Dick Kulpa, who also happened to be editor-in-chief of the notorious supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. From August 2002 to September 2003, Gosar authored a sizable number of Weekly World News articles (including three main cover stories) under a variety of aliases. Gosar made his CRACKED writing debut in # 359, February 2003 with two articles: "Where The Hell Is Osama?" and "Scenes We'll Never See On 'The Anna Nicole Show'."
In August 2003, CRACKED editor Barry Dutter and managing editor Dave Berns announced their resignation from the magazine and after much pleading with a despondent Kulpa not to cease publication of CRACKED, Gosar was named editor and soon brought in THWAK's Marten Jallad to serve as co-editor. The pair made their debut on CRACKED's masthead with issue # 362; the front cover of which bore images of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Jackson with the words "Recall" and "Freak-All" stamped (respectively) across their foreheads.
[edit] CRACKED Goes Rock n' Roll
With CRACKED # 363 came the announcement by Editor In-Chief Dick Kulpa that Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen had been named the magazine's new publisher. While some saw this as a ploy (or "cheap trick") to draw much-needed attention to the magazine in an attempt to boost lagging sales, the truth was that Nielsen had been a lifelong CRACKED fan, cared deeply about its future, and regularly attended staff meetings at the magazine's new headquarters in Rockford, Illinois. As a "welcome aboard" gesture, Editor Gosar commissioned CRACKED artist Kent Gamble to paint the front cover of CRACKED # 363's "Rock Music Issue": a collection of some of the musical personalities of the day along with a visibly pained Rick Nielsen cringing in horror as CRACKED mascot Sylvester P. Smythe strums furiously on one of his five-necked guitars.
Nielsen very much enjoyed this tribute cover and was known to have carried multiple copies of CRACKED # 363 around with him to pass out to friends and associates (including longtime friend, Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, who, along with Nielsen, is pictured with a copy of CRACKED # 363 on the back cover of CRACKED # 364). Gosar-written CRACKED # 363 articles included "Beatles Tunes For Our Loony Times," "If Jessica Simpson 'Did' History," "Pinheads Of The Caribbean: Curse Of The Bleak Hurl," and the popular, long-running "CRACKED SHUT-UPS."
[edit] "There Is Nothing Good In CRACKED" -Donald Trump
While planning CRACKED # 364 in Spring, 2004, Editors Gosar and Jallad noticed that Donald Trump’s NBC reality show "The Apprentice” was getting lots of media attention; mostly due to the seemingly unending controversy generated by one of its contestants, Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth (who was ultimately "fired" by Trump during Week 9 of Season 1). It was also noted that none of the major humor magazines of the day had really given Trump a proper drubbing; save for the occasional one-page cartoon send-up. With this in mind, it was decided that CRACKED # 364 would devote most of its pages (and a front cover) to Trump and “The Apprentice.”
