''Frantic Magazine'' is a

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

series published by

Marvel UK Marvel UK was an imprint of Marvel Comics formed in 1972 to reprint US-produced stories for the British weekly comic market. Marvel UK later produced original material by British creators such as Alan Moore, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons, Steve Dill ...

from 1979 to 1980. Part of

Dez Skinn Derek "Dez" Skinn (born 4 February 1951) Miller, John Jackson"Comics Industry Birthdays" ''Comics Buyer's Guide'', 10 June 2005. Accessed 14 August 2010WebCitation archive is a British comic and magazine editor, and author of a number of books o ...

's revamp of the company, the title was a thinly disguised copy of ''

Mad Magazine Mad, mad, or MAD may refer to: Geography * Mad (village), a village in the Dunajská Streda District of Slovakia * Mád, a village in Hungary * Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport, by IATA airport code * Mad River (disambiguation), several r ...

''. It contained the first published work of

Alan Davis Alan Davis (born 18 June 1956) is an English artist and writer of comic books, known for his work on titles such as ''Captain Britain'', ''The Uncanny X-Men'', ''ClanDestine'', ''Detective Comics'', ''Excalibur'', '' JLA: The Nail'' and '' JLA: ...

, as well as early scripts by

Alan Moore Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including ''Watchmen'', ''V for Vendetta'', ''The Ballad of Halo Jones'', ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman:'' ''The Killing Joke'', and ''From Hell' ...

. Individual issues contained a collection of parodies of popular culture - movies, TV series and printed adverts. These were mostly self-contained items that appeared in a single issue, though an ongoing strip featured the adventures of

Howard the Duck Howard the Duck is a fictional Character (arts), character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. Howard the Duck first appeared in ''Adventure into F ...

. Many of these features were reprints from the magazine's US counterpart, ''

Crazy Magazine ''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 (and two ''Super Special''s (Summer 1975, 1980)). It was preceded by two standard-format comic b ...

''. Thus, the humour often relied on American slang, phrasing and cultural references - not well known to comics readers in the UK in that era - as well as more than passing familiarity with characters from Marvel Comics. The magazine's mascot and cover character was an import from ''Crazy'' – a sinister clown called Obnoxio The Clown.

References

Marvel UK titles {{Marvel-title-stub