You may notice that Issue 11 of America’s Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine looks a little familiar... and a little different.

In 1969, notorious underground cartoonist R. Crumb drew the now-infamous Mister Dream Whip cover for CREEM Vol. 1, No. 2. At the time, CREEM was still an underground newspaper published by my father, Barry Kramer, out of the basement of Mixed Media (his record store/head shop) in Detroit’s Cass Corridor. One day, Crumb wandered in and my father, recognizing him immediately, offered $50 for a cover illustration, which Crumb gladly accepted.

Legend has it that Crumb, skeptical of pop music, intended the cover as a pointed commentary on the industry’s rampant saturation of youth culture with what he saw as confectionery garbage (or “cream,” if you will). The result was not only Mister Dream Whip’s debut on the cover of CREEM but also the first appearance of our beloved mascot, Boy Howdy! Was it luck? Perhaps. Kismet? Quite possibly. Either way, a watershed moment in CREEM’s history.