All Silver/Bronze age magazines are posted in protective bags inside rigid envelopes
Order additional magazines or comics with this delivery and pay just 60p postage for each extra item.
All photographs are of the item you are bidding on. I do not use stock shots.
MAD magazine, an American publication, through its British Edition enjoyed considerable success in Britain from the sixties through to the mid eighties. Combining brilliant comic strip artwork with cutting edge satirical writing the magazine poked fun at everyone and everything and now provides us with a wonderful insight into life through the magazine’s writers throughout the fifties and sixties.
£14.95
Published July
1961 by Thorpe & Porter London with permission of EC publications.
Editor David Climie
Front Cover by Norman Mingo.
Cover Price 2/-
Condition is Very Fine-
The covers are fully intact and
attached to original, rusted staples with minor stress. The magazine is flat
without roll, minor edge and corner wear. The back cover’s white area is a
little muddy with minor margin tanning.
Overall cover colour is bright, clear and reflective only slightly
dimmed by its 60+ years. Inside covers
are clean and white with minor margin tanning.
The internal pages are fully intact
and fully attached to their original staples with minor strain. Very minor rust staining round its staples on
the two centre pages. Pages are off
white, clean with minimal margin tanning and no brittleness.
A great looking mag despite its 60
years.
Contributors during Mad’s first decade
included Jack Davies, Bob Clarke, Wallace Wood, Joe Orlando, Mort Drucker,
George Woodbridge, Norman Mingo, Antonio Prohias, Dave Berg, Paul Coker, Sergio
Aragones, Al Jaffee and Don Martin.
The first British edition of MAD magazine was published in October 1959 and for the next ten years was published periodically eight times a year. By the end of the sixties they began to publish it more frequently and in some years monthly. Annoyingly, it would be some twenty years before the magazines were dated so all we can go by are the issue numbers. The cover artwork was frequently used by other European countries at various times so in order to get some idea of date I would suggest using the chosen film or TV show which they would spoof as a rough guide.
The main part of the magazine for most was/is the satirical destruction of a particular film or television show and although sometimes difficult to understand certain American terms they remained some of the best humour of the time. All the covers featured the freckled face of Alfred E. Neuman, so familiar with anyone growing up in that era.
See below for more info on Mad UK. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
All items are from my own collection which I am disposing of.
All photographs are of
the comic you are bidding on. I do not use stock shots.
I have additional
cover and internal photographs, please send me your email address and the
issues you are considering biding on and I will send you copies.
I try to create short
sets - usually with 6 or less related issues – to provide the reader with a
complete or near complete story arc or theme.
This provides a better reading experience and can also encourage a jump
in point for new companies, characters or titles.
I aim for honest
grading and will always describe any shortcomings including the presence of
price stickers.
All are packed
securely.
I identify “my
favourites” as such. This doesn’t
necessarily mean that they are better than my other listings - although I guess
I would argue that they are!! You judge.
I will always combine
postage costs for multiple purchases.
Hope you enjoy reading
them as much as I have collecting them.
ABOUT THE BRITISH MAD
Thanks To Simon Wilson
For The Great Information
The first British
issue was published in October of 1959. It was first published in the UK by
'Thorpe & Porter', who were largely importers of American Comic books. They
occasionally produced UK versions of US material (such as Classics
Illustrated). Either tax hikes or import restrictions on US material made it
more viable to produce UK equivalent material. Some issues until the 70's are
noted as being published by 'Top Sellers', although this was a division of
T&P.
Until the late
sixties, UK MAD was published 7 to 8 times a year like the US version, but from
1966 on it was published 11 to 12 times a year. This necessitated the
production of more original material (covers & articles). Perhaps the most
collectable (and most difficult issue to find) is #161 with the UK Dr Who
cover. Issues weren't cover dated until around January, 1979. Before that it
was almost impossible to determine the date of these magazines. Many of the
European publishers worked closely in the 60's and 70's so who many of the
covers were used by several nations, but not the United States. The best known
artist to U.S. readers was Harry North who contributed many UK covers and
articles.
The original editor
was David Climie who was replaced in the mid 1970's by Des Skinn, who is a
fairly well known character in British Comic circles, having been the head of
Mavel UK.
Around 1977 - 1978,
Thorpe & Porter closed its publishing division, and the rights were
acquired by the Production Editor of MAD UK, Ron Letchford. Letchford headed a company called Suron
Enterprises. It was basically a one man show with Ron acting as publisher and
everything else. As circulation fell (like other magazines & comics around
the world), he sold the UK rights to a company called London Editions, but
stayed on as editor. LE later merged with a huge European publisher called
Fleetway. Fleetway didn't push MAD, as they had no real history or connection
with the magazine. Sales dropped, and UK MAD was history with issue #381.
MAD UK Specials are
somewhat difficult to catalogue. Many of the early 'Extras' were unnumbered,
and were just rebound magazines. There was also the early US Specials that were
printed in the US, but printed with UK prices ("Worst From", "Trash",
"Follies" - an interesting minor variation). The Super Specials &
paperbacks were imported too, but with US prices & British prices stamped
or "stickered". Around 1983 Suron began publishing UK versions of the
Super Specials (almost identical to the US editions).
Alfred E. Neuman
The image most closely
associated with the magazine is that of Alfred E. Neuman, the boy with
misaligned eyes, a gap-toothed smile, and the perennial motto "What, me
worry?" The original image was a popular humorous graphic for many decades
before Mad adopted it, but the face is now primarily associated with Mad.
Mad first used the
boy's face in November 1954. His first iconic full-cover appearance was as a
write-in candidate for President on issue #30 (December 1956), in which he was
identified by name and sported his "What, me worry?" motto. He has
since appeared in a slew of guises and comic situations. According to Mad
writer Frank Jacobs, a letter was once successfully delivered to the magazine
through the U.S. mail bearing only Neuman's face, without any address or other
identifying information.
Other satiric-comics
magazines
Following the success
of Mad, other black-and-white magazines of topical, satiric comics began to be
published. Most were short-lived. The three longest-lasting were Cracked, Sick,
and Crazy Magazine. Many featured a cover mascot along the lines of Alfred E.
Neuman.
Colour comic-book
competitors, primarily in the mid-to-late 1950s, were Nuts!, Get Lost, Whack,
Riot, Flip, Eh!, From Here to Insanity, and Madhouse; only the last of these
lasted as many as eight issues, and some were canceled after an issue or
two. Later colour satiric comic books
included Wild, Blast, Parody, Grin and Gag!.
EC Comics itself offered the colour comic Panic, produced by future Mad
editor Al Feldstein. Two years after EC's Panic had ceased publication in 1956,
the title was used by another publisher for a similar comic.
In 1967, Marvel Comics
produced the first of 13 issues of the comic book Not Brand Echh, which
parodied the company's own superhero titles as well as other publishers. From
1973 to 1976, DC Comics published the comic Plop!, which featured Mad stalwart
Sergio Aragonés and frequent cover art by Basil Wolverton. Another publisher's
comic was Trash (1978)[citation needed] featured a blurb on the debut cover
reading, "We mess with Mad (p. 21)" and depicted Alfred E. Neuman
with a stubbly beard; the fourth and last issue showed two bodybuilders holding
up copies of "Mud" and "Crocked" with the frowning faces of
Neuman and Cracked cover mascot Sylvester P. Smythe.
………………………………………………..
Mad (magazine) US
Origins
Mad is an American
humor magazine founded in 1952 by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William
Gaines, launched as a comic book before
it became a magazine. It was widely imitated and influential, affecting
satirical media as well as the cultural landscape of the 20th century, with
editor Al Feldstein increasing readership to more than two million during its
1974 circulation peak. As of July 6,
2015, Mad has published a total of 537 issues.
The magazine is the
last surviving title from the notorious and critically acclaimed EC Comics
line, offering satire on all aspects of life and popular culture, politics,
entertainment, and public figures. Its format is divided into a number of
recurring segments such as TV and movie parodies, as well as freeform articles.
Mad's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, is typically the focal point of the magazine's
cover, with his face often replacing that of a celebrity or character who is
lampooned within the issue.
History
Main articles: History
of Mad and Harvey Kurtzman's editorship of Mad
With issue 24 (July
1955), Mad switched to a magazine format. The "extremely important
message" was "Please buy this magazine!"
Mad began as a comic
book published by EC, debuting in August 1952 (cover date October–November),
and located in lower Manhattan at 225 Lafayette Street. In the early 1960s, the
Mad office moved to 485 Madison Avenue, a location given in the magazine as
"485 MADison Avenue". The title is trademarked in capitals as MAD.
The first issue was
written almost entirely by Harvey Kurtzman, and featured illustrations by
Kurtzman, along with Wally Wood, Will Elder, Jack Davis, and John Severin.
Wood, Elder, and Davis were the three main illustrators throughout the 23-issue
run of the comic book.
To retain Kurtzman as
its editor, the comic book converted to magazine format as of issue #24 (1955).
The switchover only induced Kurtzman to remain for one more year, but
crucially, the move had removed Mad from the strictures of the Comics Code
Authority. After Kurtzman's departure in 1956, new editor Al Feldstein swiftly
brought aboard contributors such as Don Martin, Frank Jacobs, and Mort Drucker,
and later Antonio Prohías, Dave Berg, and Sergio Aragonés. The magazine's
circulation more than quadrupled during Feldstein's tenure, peaking at
2,132,655 in 1974; it later declined to a third of this figure by the end of
his time as editor. When Feldstein
retired in 1984, he was replaced by the team of Nick Meglin and John Ficarra,
who co-edited Mad for the next two decades. Since Meglin's retirement in 2004,
Ficarra has continued to edit the magazine.
Gaines sold his
company in the early 1960s to the Kinney Parking Company, which also acquired
National Periodicals (a.k.a. DC Comics) and Warner Bros. by the end of that
decade. Gaines was named a Kinney board member, and was largely permitted to
run Mad as he saw fit without corporate interference.
Following Gaines'
death, Mad became more ingrained within the Time Warner corporate structure.
Eventually, the magazine was obliged to abandon its long-time home at 485
Madison Avenue, and in the mid-1990s it moved into DC Comics' offices at the
same time that DC relocated to 1700 Broadway. In 2001, the magazine broke its
long-standing taboo and began running paid advertising. The outside revenue
allowed the introduction of colour printing and improved paper stock.
In its earliest
incarnation, new issues of the magazine appeared erratically, between four and
seven times a year. By the end of 1958, Mad had settled on an unusual
eight-times-a-year schedule, which lasted almost four decades. Gaines felt the
atypical timing was necessary to maintain the magazine's level of quality. Mad
then began producing additional issues, until it reached a traditional monthly
schedule with the January 1997 issue. With its 500th issue (June 2009), amid
company-wide cutbacks at Time Warner, the magazine temporarily regressed to a
quarterly publication before settling to six issues per year in 2010.
Influence
Though there are
antecedents to Mad's style of humor in print, radio and film, Mad became a
pioneering example of it. Throughout the 1950s, Mad featured groundbreaking
parodies combining a sentimental fondness for the familiar staples of American
culture—such as Archie and Superman—with a keen joy in exposing the fakery
behind the image. Its approach was described by Dave Kehr in The New York
Times: "Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding on the radio, Ernie Kovacs on
television, Stan Freberg on records, Harvey Kurtzman in the early issues of
Mad: all of those pioneering humorists and many others realized that the real
world mattered less to people than the sea of sounds and images that the ever
more powerful mass media were pumping into American lives." Bob and Ray,
Kovacs and Freberg all became contributors to Mad.
In 1977, Tony Hiss and
Jeff Lewis wrote in The New York Times about the then 25-year-old publication's
initial effect:
The skeptical
generation of kids it shaped in the 1950s is the same generation that, in the
1960s, opposed a war and didn't feel bad when the United States lost for the
first time and in the 1970s helped turn out an Administration and didn't feel
bad about that either... It was magical, objective proof to kids that they
weren't alone, that in New York City on Lafayette Street, if nowhere else,
there were people who knew that there was something wrong, phony and funny
about a world of bomb shelters, brinkmanship and toothpaste smiles. Mad's
consciousness of itself, as trash, as comic book, as enemy of parents and
teachers, even as money-making enterprise, thrilled kids. In 1955, such
consciousness was possibly nowhere else to be found. In a Mad parody,
comic-strip characters knew they were stuck in a strip. For example,
"Darnold Duck," for instance, begins wondering why he has only three
fingers and has to wear white gloves all the time. He ends up wanting to murder
every other Disney character. G.I. Schmoe tries to win the sexy Asiatic Red
Army broad by telling her, "O.K., baby! You're all mine! I gave you a
chance to hit me witta gun butt... But naturally, you have immediately fallen
in love with me, since I am a big hero of this story."
Mad is often credited
with filling a vital gap in political satire from the 1950s to 1970s, when Cold
War paranoia and a general culture of censorship prevailed in the United
States, especially in literature for teens. Activist Tom Hayden said, "My
own radical journey began with Mad Magazine." The rise of such factors as cable television
and the Internet have diminished the influence and impact of Mad, although it
remains a widely distributed magazine. In a way, Mad's power has been undone by
its own success: what was subversive in the 1950s and 1960s is now commonplace.
However, its impact on three generations of humorists is incalculable, as can
be seen in the frequent references to Mad on the animated series The Simpsons. Simpsons producer Bill Oakley said, "The
Simpsons has transplanted Mad magazine. Basically everyone who was young
between 1955 and 1975 read Mad, and that's where your sense of humor came from.
And we knew all these people, you know, Dave Berg and Don Martin– all heroes,
and unfortunately, now all dead. And I think The Simpsons has taken that spot
in America's heart." In 2009, The
New York Times wrote, "Mad once defined American satire; now it heckles
from the margins as all of culture competes for trickster status."
Longtime contributor Al Jaffee described the dilemma to an interviewer in 2010:
"When Mad first came out, in 1952, it was the only game in town. Now,
you've got graduates from Mad who are doing The Today Show or Stephen Colbert
or Saturday Night Live. All of these people grew up on Mad. Now Mad has to top
them. So Mad is almost in a competition with itself."
Mad's satiric net was
cast wide. The magazine often featured parodies of ongoing American culture,
including advertising campaigns, the nuclear family, the media, big business,
education and publishing. In the 1960s and beyond, it satirized such burgeoning
topics as the sexual revolution, hippies, the generation gap, psychoanalysis,
gun politics, pollution, the Vietnam War and recreational drug use. The
magazine took a generally negative tone towards counterculture drugs such as
cannabis and LSD, but also savaged mainstream drugs such as tobacco and
alcohol. Mad always satirized Democrats as mercilessly as it did Republicans.
In 2007, Al Feldstein recalled, "We even used to rake the hippies over the
coals. They were protesting the Vietnam War, but we took aspects of their
culture and had fun with it. Mad was wide open. Bill loved it, and he was a
capitalist Republican. I loved it, and I was a liberal Democrat. That went for
the writers, too; they all had their own political leanings, and everybody had
a voice. But the voices were mostly critical. It was social commentary, after
all." Mad also ran a good deal of
less topical or contentious material on such varied subjects as fairy tales,
nursery rhymes, greeting cards, sports, small talk, poetry, marriage, comic
strips, awards shows, cars and many other areas of general interest.
In 2007, the Los
Angeles Times' Robert Boyd wrote, "All I really need to know I learned
from Mad magazine", going on to assert:
Plenty of it went
right over my head, of course, but that's part of what made it attractive and
valuable. Things that go over your head can make you raise your head a little
higher.
The magazine instilled
in me a habit of mind, a way of thinking about a world rife with false fronts,
small print, deceptive ads, booby traps, treacherous language, double
standards, half truths, subliminal pitches and product placements; it warned me
that I was often merely the target of people who claimed to be my friend; it
prompted me to mistrust authority, to read between the lines, to take nothing
at face value, to see patterns in the often shoddy construction of movies and
TV shows; and it got me to think critically in a way that few actual humans
charged with my care ever bothered to.
In 1994, Brian Siano
in The Humanist discussed the eye-opening aspects of Mad:
For the smarter kids
of two generations, Mad was a revelation: it was the first to tell us that the
toys we were being sold were garbage, our teachers were phonies, our leaders
were fools, our religious counselors were hypocrites, and even our parents were
lying to us about damn near everything. An entire generation had William Gaines
for a godfather: this same generation later went on to give us the sexual
revolution, the environmental movement, the peace movement, greater freedom in
artistic expression, and a host of other goodies. Coincidence? You be the
judge."
Pulitzer Prize–winning
art comics maven Art Spiegelman said, "The message Mad had in general is,
'The media is lying to you, and we are part of the media.' It was basically...
'Think for yourselves, kids.'" William Gaines offered his own view: when
asked to cite Mad's philosophy, his boisterous answer was, "We must never
stop reminding the reader what little value they get for their money!"
Comics historian Tom
Spurgeon picked Mad as the medium's top series of all time, writing, "At
the height of its influence, Mad was The Simpsons, The Daily Show and The Onion
combined." Graydon Carter chose it as the sixth best magazine of any sort
ever, describing Mad's mission as being "ever ready to pounce on the
illogical, hypocritical, self-serious and ludicrous" before concluding,
"Nowadays, it's part of the oxygen we breathe." Joyce Carol Oates
called it "wonderfully inventive, irresistibly irreverent and
intermittently ingenious." Monty Python's Terry Gilliam wrote, "Mad
became the Bible for me and my whole generation." Asked whether his early
exposure to Mad had had any influence on Weird Al Yankovic's road to parody,
the musician replied, "[It was] more like going off a cliff." Critic Roger Ebert wrote:
I learned to be a
movie critic by reading Mad magazine... Mad's parodies made me aware of the
machine inside the skin—of the way a movie might look original on the outside,
while inside it was just recycling the same old dumb formulas. I did not read
the magazine, I plundered it for clues to the universe. Pauline Kael lost it at
the movies; I lost it at Mad magazine.
Rock singer Patti
Smith said more succinctly, "After Mad, drugs were nothing."
Court cases
The magazine has been
involved in various legal actions over the decades, some of which have reached
the United States Supreme Court. The most far-reaching was Irving Berlin et al.
v. E.C. Publications, Inc. In 1961, a group of music publishers representing
songwriters such as Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers and Cole Porter filed a $25
million lawsuit against Mad for copyright infringement following "Sing Along
With Mad," a collection of parody lyrics which the magazine said could be
"sung to the tune of" many popular songs. The publishing group hoped
to establish a legal precedent that only a song's composers retained the right
to parody that song. Judge Charles Metzner of U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New York ruled largely in favor of Mad in 1963, affirming
its right to print 23 of the 25 song parodies under dispute. However, in the
case of two parodies, "Always" (sung to the tune of "Always")
and "There's No Business Like No Business" (sung to the tune of
"There's No Business Like Show Business"), Judge Metzner decided that
the issue of copyright infringement was closer, requiring a trial because in
each case the parodies relied on the same verbal hooks ("always" and
"business") as the originals. The music publishers appealed the
ruling, but the U.S. Court of Appeals not only upheld the pro-Mad decision in
regard to the 23 songs, it adopted an approach that was broad enough to strip
the publishers of their limited victory regarding the remaining two songs.
Writing a unanimous opinion for the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
Circuit Judge Irving Kaufman pointedly observed, "We doubt that even so
eminent a composer as plaintiff Irving Berlin should be permitted to claim a
property interest in iambic pentameter." The publishers again appealed,
but the Supreme Court refused to hear it, thus allowing the decision to stand.
This precedent-setting case established the rights of parodists and satirists to mimic the meter of popular songs. However, the "Sing Along With Mad" songbook was not the magazine's first venture into musical parody. In 1960, Mad had published "My Fair Ad-Man," a full advertising-based spoof of the hit Broadway musical My Fair Lady. In 1959, "If Gilbert & Sullivan wrote Dick Tracy" was one of the speculative pairings in "If Famous Authors Wrote the Comics". Three decades later, Mad was one of several parties that filed amicus curiae briefs with the Supreme Court in support of 2 Live Crew and its disputed song parody, during the 1993 Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. case.
In 1966, a series of
copyright infringement lawsuits against the magazine regarding ownership of the
Alfred E. Neuman image eventually reached the appellate level. Although Harry
Stuff had copyrighted the image in 1914, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit ruled that, by allowing many copies of the image to circulate
without any copyright notice, the owner of the copyright had allowed the image
to pass into the public domain, thus establishing the right of Mad – or anyone
else for that matter – to use the image. In addition, Mad established that
Stuff was not himself the creator of the image by producing numerous other
examples dating back to the late 19th century. This decision was also allowed
to stand.
Advertising
Mad was long noted for
its absence of advertising, enabling it to satirize materialist culture without
fear of reprisal. For decades, it was the most successful American magazine to
publish ad-free, beginning with issue #33 (April 1957) and continuing through
issue #402 (February 2001).
As a comic book, Mad
had run the same advertisements as the rest of EC's line. The magazine later
made a deal with Moxie soda that involved inserting the Moxie logo into various
articles. Mad ran a limited number of ads in its first two years as a magazine,
helpfully labeled "real advertisement" to differentiate the real from
the parodies. The last authentic ad published under the original Mad regime was
for Famous Artists School; two issues later, the inside front cover of issue
#34 had a parody of the same ad. After this transitional period, the only
promotions to appear in Mad for decades were house ads for Mad's own books and
specials, subscriptions, and promotional items such as ceramic busts, T-shirts,
or a line of Mad jewelry. This rule was bent only a few times to promote
outside products directly related to the magazine, such as Parker Brothers Mad
Board Game, the video game based on Spy vs. Spy, and the notorious Up the
Academy movie, (which the magazine later disowned). Mad explicitly promised
that it would never make its mailing list available.
Both Kurtzman and
Feldstein wanted the magazine to solicit advertising, feeling this could be
accomplished without compromising Mad's content or editorial independence.
Kurtzman remembered Ballyhoo, a boisterous 1930s humor publication that made an
editorial point of mocking its own sponsors. Feldstein went so far as to
propose an in-house Mad ad agency, and produced a "dummy" copy of
what an issue with ads could look like. But Bill Gaines was intractable,
telling the television news magazine 60 Minutes, "We long ago decided we
couldn't take money from Pepsi-Cola and make fun of Coca-Cola." Gaines'
motivation in eschewing ad dollars was less philosophical than practical:
We'd have to improve
our package. Most advertisers want to appear in a magazine that's loaded with
colour and has super-slick paper. So you find yourself being pushed into
producing a more expensive package. You get bigger and fancier and attract more
advertisers. Then you find you're losing some of your advertisers. Your readers
still expect the fancy package, so you keep putting it out, but now you don't
have your advertising income, which is why you got fancier in the first
place—and now you're sunk.
Recurring feature
Mad is known for many
regular and semi-regular recurring features in its pages, including "Spy
vs. Spy", the "Mad Fold-in", "The Lighter Side of..."
and its television and movie parodies.
Alfred E. Neuman
The image most closely
associated with the magazine is that of Alfred E. Neuman, the boy with
misaligned eyes, a gap-toothed smile, and the perennial motto "What, me
worry?" The original image was a popular humorous graphic for many decades
before Mad adopted it, but the face is now primarily associated with Mad.
Mad first used the
boy's face in November 1954. His first iconic full-cover appearance was as a
write-in candidate for President on issue #30 (December 1956), in which he was
identified by name and sported his "What, me worry?" motto. He has
since appeared in a slew of guises and comic situations. According to Mad
writer Frank Jacobs, a letter was once successfully delivered to the magazine
through the U.S. mail bearing only Neuman's face, without any address or other
identifying information.
Contributors and
criticism
Mad has provided an
ongoing showcase for many long-running satirical writers and artists and has
fostered an unusual group loyalty. Although several of the contributors earn
far more than their Mad pay in fields such as television and advertising, they
have steadily continued to provide material for the publication. Among the notable artists were the
aforementioned Davis, Elder and Wood, as well as Mort Drucker, George
Woodbridge and Paul Coker. Writers such as Dick DeBartolo, Stan Hart, Frank
Jacobs, Tom Koch, and Arnie Kogen appeared regularly in the magazine's pages.
In several cases, only infirmity or death has ended a contributor's run at Mad.
Within the industry,
Mad was known for the uncommonly prompt manner in which its contributors were
paid. Publisher Gaines would typically write a personal check and give it to
the artist upon receipt of the finished product. Wally Wood said, "I got
spoiled... Other publishers don't do that. I started to get upset if I had to
wait a whole week for my check." Another lure for contributors was the
annual "Mad Trip," an all-expenses-paid tradition that began in 1960.
The editorial staff was automatically invited, along with freelancers who had
qualified for an invitation by selling a set amount of articles or pages during
the previous year. Gaines was strict about enforcing this quota, and one year,
longtime writer and frequent traveller Arnie Kogen was bumped off the list.
Later that year, Gaines' mother died, and Kogen was asked if he would be
attending the funeral. "I can't," said Kogen, "I don't have
enough pages." Over the years, the Mad crew traveled to such locales as
France, Kenya, Russia, Hong Kong, England, Amsterdam, Tahiti, Morocco, Italy,
Greece, and Germany. The tradition ended
with Gaines' death, and a 1993 trip to Monte Carlo.
Although Mad was an
exclusively freelance publication, it achieved a remarkable stability, with
numerous contributors remaining prominent for decades. Critics of the magazine felt that this lack of
turnover eventually led to a formulaic sameness, although there is little
agreement on when the magazine peaked or plunged. Many have written that the
key factor is when the reader first encountered Mad. According to Mad Senior
Editor, Joe Raiola, "Mad is the only place in America where if you mature,
you get fired."
Proclaiming the
precise moment that began the magazine's irreversible decline is still debated,
but its sales peak came with issue 161 which sold 2.1 million copies in 1973.
From 1981 onwards the magazine sold under a million copies until its present
circulation figures in the 100,000 range. Mad poked fun at the tendency of
readers to accuse the magazine of declining in quality at various points in its
history, depending on the age of the critic, in its "Untold History of Mad
Magazine," a self-referential faux history in the 400th issue which joked:
"The second issue of Mad goes on sale on December 9, 1952. On December 11,
the first-ever letter complaining that Mad 'just isn't as funny and original
like it used to be' arrives."
Among the most
frequently cited "downward turning points" are: creator/editor Harvey
Kurtzman's departure in 1957; the magazine's mainstream success; adoption of
recurring features starting in the early 1960s; the magazine's absorption into
a more corporate structure in 1968 (or the mid-1990s); founder Gaines' death in
1992; the magazine's publicized "revamp" in 1997; or the arrival of
paid advertising in 2001. Mad has been
criticized for its over-reliance on a core group of aging regulars throughout
the 1970s and 1980s and then criticized again for an alleged downturn as those
same creators began to leave, die, retire, or contribute less frequently. It has
been proposed that Mad is more susceptible to this criticism than many media
because a sizable percentage of its readership turns over regularly as it ages,
as Mad focuses greatly on current events and a changing popular culture. In
2010, Sergio Aragones said, "Mad is written by people who never thought
'Okay, I'm going to write for kids,' or 'I'm going to write for adults.' ...
And many people say 'I used to read Mad, but Mad has changed a lot.' Excuse
me—you grew up! You have new interests. ... The change doesn't come from the
magazine, it comes from the people who grow or don't grow." The magazine's art director, Sam Viviano, has
suggested that historically, Mad was at its best "whenever you first
started reading it."
Among the loudest of
those who insist the magazine is no longer funny are supporters of Harvey
Kurtzman, who had the good critical fortune to leave Mad after just 28 issues,
before his own formulaic tendencies might have become obtrusive. This also
meant Kurtzman suffered the bad creative and financial timing of departing
before the magazine became a runaway success.
However, just how much
of that success was due to the original Kurtzman template that he left for his
successor, and how much should be credited to the Al Feldstein system and the
depth of the post-Kurtzman talent pool, can be argued without resolution. In
2009, an interviewer proposed to Al Jaffee, "There's a group of Mad
aficionados who feel that if Harvey Kurtzman had stayed at Mad, the magazine
would not only have been different, but better." Jaffee, a Kurtzman
enthusiast, replied, "And then there's a large group who feel that if
Harvey had stayed with Mad, he would have upgraded it to the point that only fifteen
people would buy it." During
Kurtzman's final two-plus years at EC, Mad appeared erratically (ten issues
appeared in 1954, followed by eight issues in 1955 and four issues in 1956).
Feldstein was less well regarded creatively, but kept the magazine on a regular
schedule, leading to decades of success. (Kurtzman and Will Elder returned to
Mad for a short time in the mid-1980s as an illustrating team.)
Many of the magazine's
mainstays began retiring or dying by the 1980s. Newer contributors who appeared
in the years that followed include Joe Raiola, Charlie Kadau, Tony Barbieri,
Scott Bricher, Tom Bunk, John Caldwell, Desmond Devlin, Drew Friedman, Barry
Liebmann, Kevin Pope, Scott Maiko, Hermann Mejia, Tom Richmond, Andrew J.
Schwartzberg, Mike Snider, Greg Theakston, Nadina Simon, Rick Tulka and Bill
Wray.
On April 1, 1997, the
magazine publicized an alleged "revamp," ostensibly designed to reach
an older, more sophisticated readership. However, Salon's David Futrelle opined
that such content was very much a part of Mad's past:
The October 1971
issue, for example, with its war crimes fold-in and back cover
"mini-poster" of "The Four Horsemen of the Metropolis"
(Drugs, Graft, Pollution and Slums). With its Mad Pollution Primer. With its
"Reality Street" TV satire, taking a poke at the idealized images of
interracial harmony on Sesame Street. ("It's a street of depression,/
Corruption, oppression!/ It's a sadist's dream come true!/ And masochists,
too!") With its "This is America" photo feature, contrasting
images of heroic astronauts with graphic photos of dead soldiers and junkies
shooting up. I remember this issue pretty well; it was one of the ones I picked
up at a garage sale and read to death. I seem to remember asking my parents
what "graft" was. One of the joys of Mad for me at the time was that
it was always slightly over my head. From "Mad's Up-Dated Modern Day
Mother Goose" I learned about Andy Warhol, Spiro Agnew and Timothy Leary
("Wee Timmy Leary/ Soars through the sky/ Upward and Upward/ Till he's,
oh, so, high/ Since this rhyme's for kiddies/ How do we explain/ That Wee Timmy
Leary/ Isn't in a plane?"). From "Greeting Cards for the Sexual
Revolution" I learned about "Gay Liberationists" and
leather-clad "Sex Fetishists." I read the Mad versions of a whole
host of films I never in a million years would have been allowed to see: Easy
Rider ("Sleazy Riders"), Midnight Cowboy ("Midnight
Wowboy"), Five Easy Pieces ("Five Easy Pages [and two hard
ones].") I learned about the John Birch Society and Madison Avenue.
Mad editor John
Ficarra acknowledges that changes in culture have made the task of creating
fresh satire more difficult, telling an interviewer, "The editorial
mission statement has always been the same: 'Everyone is lying to you,
including magazines. Think for yourself. Question authority.' But it's gotten harder,
as they've gotten better at lying and getting in on the joke."
Mad contributor Tom
Richmond has tweaked critics who say the magazine's decision to accept
advertising would make late publisher William Gaines "turn over in his
grave", pointing out this was impossible because Gaines was cremated.
Contributors
Mad is known for the
stability and longevity of its talent roster, billed as "The Usual Gang of
Idiots," with several creators enjoying 30-, 40- and even 50-year careers
in the magazine's pages.
According to the
"Mad Magazine Contributor Appearances" website, more than 850
contributors have received bylines in at least one issue of Mad, but only three
dozen of those have contributed to 100 issues or more. Al Jaffee has appeared in the most issues (485
as of October 2015). The other three contributors to have appeared in more than
400 issues of Mad are Sergio Aragonés, Dick DeBartolo, and Mort Drucker; Dave
Berg, Paul Coker and Frank Jacobs have each topped the 300 mark. (The list
calculates appearances by issue only, not by individual articles or overall
page count; e.g. although Jacobs wrote three separate articles that appeared in
issue #172, his total is reckoned to have increased by one.)
Each of the following
contributors has created over 150 articles for the magazine:
Writers:
Dick DeBartolo Desmond
Devlin Stan Hart Frank Jacobs Tom Koch Arnie Kogen Larry Siegel Lou Silverstone
Mike Snider
Writer-Artists:
Sergio Aragonés Dave
Berg John Caldwell Duck Edwing Al Jaffee Peter Kuper Don Martin Paul Peter
Porges Antonio Prohías
Artists:
Tom Bunk Bob Clarke Paul
Coker Jack Davis Mort Drucker Hermann Mejia Jack Rickard Angelo Torres Rick
Tulka Sam Viviano Wally Wood George
Woodbridge
Photographer:
Irving Schild
Some of the editorial
staff, notably Charlie Kadau, John Ficarra, and Joe Raiola, have had dozens of
bylined articles. They, along with Al Feldstein, Nick Meglin and others, also
had creative input with many articles.
Other notable
contributors
Among the irregular
contributors with just a single Mad byline to their credit are Charles M.
Schulz, Chevy Chase, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Andy Griffith, Will Eisner,
Kevin Smith, J. Fred Muggs, Boris Vallejo, Sir John Tenniel, Jean Shepherd,
Winona Ryder, Jimmy Kimmel, Jason Alexander, Walt Kelly, Rep. Barney Frank, Tom
Wolfe, Steve Allen, Jim Lee, Jules Feiffer, Donald Knuth and Richard Nixon, who
remains the only President credited with "writing" a Mad article. (The entire text was taken from Nixon's
speeches.)
Contributing just
twice are such luminaries as Tom Lehrer, Gustave Doré, Danny Kaye, Stan
Freberg, Mort Walker and Leonardo da Vinci. (Leonardo's check is still waiting
in the Mad offices for him to pick it up.) Frank Frazetta (3 bylines), Ernie
Kovacs (11), Bob and Ray, and Sid Caesar (4) appeared slightly more frequently.
In its earliest years, before amassing its own staff of regulars, the magazine
frequently used outside "name" talent. Often, Mad would simply
illustrate the celebrities' preexisting material. When the magazine learned
that Tom Koch was the writer behind the Bob and Ray radio sketches adapted by
Mad, Koch was sought out by the editors and ultimately wrote more than 300 Mad
articles over the next 37 years.
The magazine has
occasionally run guest articles in which notables from show business or comic
books have participated. In 1964, an article called "Comic Strips They'd
Really Like To Do" featured one-shot proposals by cartoonists including
Mell Lazarus and Charles M. Schulz. More than once, the magazine has enlisted
popular comic book artists such as Frank Miller or Jim Lee to design and
illustrate a series of "Rejected Superheroes." In 2008, the magazine
got national coverage for its article "Why George W. Bush is in Favour of
Global warming." Each of the piece's ten punchlines was illustrated by a
different Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoonist.
Foreign editions
In 1955, Gaines began
presenting reprints of material for Mad in black-and-white paperbacks, the
first being The Mad Reader. Many of
these featured new covers by Mad cover artist Norman Mingo. This practice
continued into the 2000s, with more than 100 Mad paperbacks published. Gaines
made a special effort to keep the entire line of paperbacks in print at all
times, and the books were frequently reprinted in new editions with different
covers.
Mad also frequently
repackaged its material in a long series of "Super Special" format
magazines, beginning in 1958 with two concurrent annual series entitled The
Worst from Mad and More Trash from Mad. Various other titles have been used
through the years. These reprint issues
were sometimes augmented by exclusive features such as posters, stickers and,
on a few occasions, recordings on flexi-disc, or comic book–formatted inserts
reprinting material from the 1952–55 era.
One steady form of
revenue has come from foreign editions of the magazine. Mad has been published
in local versions in many countries, beginning with the United Kingdom in 1959,
and Sweden in 1960. Each new market receives access to the publication's back
catalogue of articles and is also encouraged to produce its own localized
material in the Mad vein. However, the sensibility of the American Mad has not
always translated to other cultures, and many of the foreign editions have had
short lives or interrupted publications. The Swedish, Danish, Italian and
Mexican Mads were each published on three separate occasions; Norway has had
four runs cancelled. United Kingdom (35 years), Sweden (34 years) and Brazil
(33 years) produced the longest uninterrupted Mad variants.
Current foreign
editions
Germany, 1968–1995,
1998–present;
Brazil, 1974–1983,
1984–2000, 2000–2006, 2008–present;
Australia,
1980–present;
South Africa,
1985–present;
Spain, 1974, 1975 (as
Locuras), 2006–present;
Poland, 2015–present
Past foreign editions[edit]
United Kingdom,
1959–1994
Sweden, 1960–1993,
1997–2002;
Denmark, 1962–1971,
1979–1997, 1998–2002;
Netherlands,
1964–1996; 2011–2012;
France, 1965, 1982;
Finland, 1970–1972,
1982–2005
Italy, 1971–1974,
1984, 1992–1993;
Norway, 1971–1972,
1981–1993, 1995, 2002–2003;
Argentina, 1977–1982;
Mexico, 1977–1983,
1984–1986, 1993–1998; 2004–2010[59]
Caribbean, 1977–1983;
Greece, 1978–1985,
1995–1999;
Japan 1979–1980 (2
oversized anthologies were released)
Iceland, 1985;
1987–1988
Taiwan, 1990;
Canada (Quebec),
1991–1992 (Past material in a "collection album" with Croc, another
Quebec humor magazine);
Hungary, 1994–2009;
Israel, 1994–1995;
Romania, 1996–2010
Turkey, 2000–2003.
Conflicts over content
have occasionally arisen between the parent magazine and its international
franchisees. When a comic strip satirizing England's royal family was reprinted
in a Mad paperback, it was deemed necessary to rip out the page from 25,000
copies by hand before the book could be distributed in Great Britain. But Mad
was also protective of its own editorial standards. Bill Gaines sent "one
of his typically dreadful, blistering letters" to his Dutch editors after
they published a bawdy gag about a men's room urinal. Mad has since relaxed its requirements, and while
the U.S. version still eschews overt profanity, the magazine generally poses no
objections to more provocative content such as the Swedish edition's 1999 parody
of the film Fucking Åmål.
Spin-off
Mad Kids
Main article: Mad Kids
Between 2005 and February
17, 2009, the magazine published 14 issues of Mad Kids, a spinoff publication
aimed at a younger demographic. Reminiscent of Nickelodeon's newsstand titles,
it emphasized current kids' entertainment (i.e. Yu-Gi-Oh!, Naruto, High School
Musical), albeit with an impudent voice. Much of the content of Mad Kids had
originally appeared in the parent publication; reprinted material was chosen
and edited to reflect grade schoolers' interests. But the quarterly magazine
also included newly commissioned articles and cartoons, as well as puzzles,
bonus inserts, a calendar, and the other activity-related content that is
common to kids' magazines.
Other satiric-comics
magazines
Following the success
of Mad, other black-and-white magazines of topical, satiric comics began to be
published. Most were short-lived. The three longest-lasting were Cracked, Sick,
and Crazy Magazine. Many featured a cover mascot along the lines of Alfred E.
Neuman.
Colour comic-book
competitors, primarily in the mid-to-late 1950s, were Nuts!, Get Lost, Whack,
Riot, Flip, Eh!, From Here to Insanity, and Madhouse; only the last of these
lasted as many as eight issues, and some were canceled after an issue or two. Later colour satiric comic books included
Wild, Blast, Parody, Grin and Gag!. EC Comics
itself offered the colour comic Panic, produced by future Mad editor Al
Feldstein. Two years after EC's Panic had ceased publication in 1956, the title
was used by another publisher for a similar comic.
In 1967, Marvel Comics
produced the first of 13 issues of the comic book Not Brand Echh, which
parodied the company's own superhero titles as well as other publishers. From
1973 to 1976, DC Comics published the comic Plop!, which featured Mad stalwart
Sergio Aragonés and frequent cover art by Basil Wolverton. Another publisher's
comic was Trash (1978)[citation needed] featured a blurb on the debut cover
reading, "We mess with Mad (p. 21)" and depicted Alfred E. Neuman
with a stubbly beard; the fourth and last issue showed two bodybuilders holding
up copies of "Mud" and "Crocked" with the frowning faces of
Neuman and Cracked cover mascot Sylvester P. Smythe.
Among other U.S. humor
magazines that included some degree of comics art as well as text articles were
former Mad editor Harvey Kurtzman's Humbug, Trump and Help!; and National
Lampoon.
Spy vs spy started
Sunday strips originally in 2002 then 2014.
Other media
Over the years, Mad
has branched out from print into other media. During the Gaines years, the
publisher had an aversion to exploiting his fanbase and expressed the fear that
substandard Mad products would offend them. He was known to personally issue
refunds to anyone who wrote to the magazine with a complaint. Among the few
outside Mad items available in its first 40 years were cufflinks, a T-shirt
designed like a straitjacket (complete with lock), and a small ceramic Alfred
E. Neuman bust. For decades, the letters page advertised an inexpensive
portrait of Neuman ("suitable for framing or for wrapping fish") with
misleading slogans such as "Only 1 Left!" (The joke being that the
picture was so undesirable that only one had left their office since the last
ad.) After Gaines' death came an overt absorption into the Time-Warner
publishing umbrella, with the result that Mad merchandise began to appear more
frequently. Items were displayed in the Warner Bros. Studio Stores, and in 1994
The Mad Style Guide was created for licensing use.
Recordings
Mad has sponsored or
inspired a number of recordings. In 1959, Bernie Green "with the Stereo
Mad-Men" recorded the album Musically Mad for RCA Victor, featuring music
inspired by Mad and an image of Alfred E. Neuman on the cover; it has been reissued on CD. That same year,
The Worst from Mad #2 included an original recording, "Meet the staff of
Mad," on a cardboard 33 rpm record, while a single credited to Alfred E.
Neuman & The Furshlugginger Five: "What – Me Worry?" (b/w
"Potrzebie"), was issued in late 1959 on the ABC Paramount label. Two
additional albums of novelty songs were released by Big Top Records in 1962–63:
"Mad 'Twists' Rock 'N' Roll" and "Fink Along with Mad." The
latter album featured a song titled "It's a Gas," which punctuated an
instrumental track with belches (along with a saxophone break by an uncredited
King Curtis). Dr. Demento featured this gaseous performance on his radio show
in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. Mad included some of these tracks as
plastic-laminated cardboard inserts and (later) flexi-discs with their
reprinted "Mad Specials." A number of original recordings also were
released in this way in the 1970s and early 1980s, such as "Gall in the
Family Fare" (a radio play adaptation of their previously illustrated All
in the Family parody), a single entitled "Makin' Out," the
octuple-grooved track "It's a Super Spectacular Day," which had eight
possible endings, the spoken word Meet the staff insert, and a six-track,
30-minute Mad Disco EP (from the 1980 Special of the same title) that included
a disco version of "It's a Gas." The last turntable-playable
recording Mad packaged with its magazines was "A Mad Look at
Graduation," in a 1983 Special. A CD-ROM containing several audio tracks
was included with issue #350 (October 1996). Rhino Records compiled a number of
Mad-recorded tracks as Mad Grooves (1996).
Stage show
A successful off
Broadway production, The Mad Show, was first staged in 1966. The show, which
lasted for 871 performances during its initial run, featured sketches written
by Mad regulars Stan Hart and Larry Siegel interspersed with comedic songs (one
of which was written by an uncredited Stephen Sondheim). The cast album is available on CD.
Gaming
In 1979, Mad released
a board game. The Mad Magazine Game was an absurdist version of Monopoly in
which the first player to lose all his money and go bankrupt was the winner.
Profusely illustrated with artwork by the magazine's contributors, the game
included a $1,329,063-bill that could not be won unless one's name was
"Alfred E. Neuman." It also featured a deck of cards (called
"Card cards") with bizarre instructions, such as "If you can
jump up and stay airborne for 37 seconds, you can lose $5,000. If not, jump up
and lose $500." In 1980 a second game was released: The Mad Magazine Card
Game by Parker Brothers. In it, the player who first loses all their cards is
declared the winner. The game is fairly similar to UNO by Mattel.
Film and television
Following the success
of the National Lampoon–backed Animal House, Mad lent its name in 1980 to a
similarly risque comedy film, Up the Academy. It was such a commercial debacle
and critical failure that Mad successfully arranged for all references to the
magazine (including a cameo by Alfred E. Neuman) to be removed from future TV
and video releases of the film, although those references were eventually
restored on the DVD version which was titled, "Mad Magazine Presents Up
the Academy." Mad also devoted two pages of its magazine to an attack on
the movie, titled Throw Up the Academy. The spoof's ending collapsed into a
series of interoffice memos between the writer, artist, editor and publisher,
all bewailing the fact that they'd been forced to satirize such a terrible
film.
A 1974 Mad animated
television pilot using selected material from the magazine was commissioned by
ABC but the network decided to not broadcast it. Dick DeBartolo noted,
"Nobody wanted to sponsor a show that made fun of products that were
advertised on TV, like car manufacturers." The program was instead created
into a TV special, and is currently available for online viewing.
In the mid-1980s,
Hanna-Barbera developed another potential Mad animated television series which
was never broadcast.
In 1995, Fox
Broadcasting Company's Mad TV licensed the use of the magazine's logo and
characters. However, aside from short bumpers which animated existing "Spy
vs. Spy" (1994–1998) and Don Martin (1995–2000) cartoons during the show's
first three seasons, there was no editorial or stylistic connection between the
TV show and the magazine. Produced by Quincy Jones, the sketch comedy series
was in the vein of NBC's Saturday Night Live and Global/CBC's SCTV, and ran for
14 seasons and 321 episodes. Animated "Spy vs. Spy" sequences have
also been seen in TV ads for Mountain Dew soda in 2004.
In September 2010,
Cartoon Network began airing the animated series, Mad, from Warner Bros.
Animation and executive producer Sam Register (Teen Titans, Ben 10, Batman: The
Brave and the Bold). The series aired short animated vignettes about current
television shows, films, games and other aspects of popular culture. Much like
Mad TV's early seasons, this series also features appearances by "Spy vs.
Spy" and Don Martin cartoons. Produced by Kevin Shinick (Robot Chicken)
and Mark Marek (KaBlam!, The Andy Milonakis Show), the series ran from
September 6, 2010 to December 2, 2013, lasting for 4 seasons and 103 episodes.
Computer software
In the 1980s, three
Spy vs. Spy computer games, in which players could set traps for each other,
were made for various computer systems such as the Commodore 64. While the
original game took place in a nondescript building, the sequels transposed the
action to a polar setting and a desert island.
Not to be confused
with the later television show, Mad TV is a television station management
simulation computer game produced in 1991 by Rainbow Arts for the Mad
franchise. It was released on the PC and the Amiga. It is faithful to the
magazine's general style of cartoon humor, but does not include any of the
original characters except for a brief closeup of Alfred E. Neuman's eyes
during the opening screens.
In 1996, Mad #350
included a CD-ROM featuring Mad-related software as well as three audio files. In 1999, Brøderbund/The Learning Company
released Totally Mad, a Microsoft Windows 95/98 compatible CD-ROM set
collecting the magazine's content from #1 through #376 (December 1998), plus
over 100 Mad Specials including most of the recorded audio inserts. Despite the
title, it omitted a handful of articles due to problems clearing the rights on
some book excerpts and text taken from recordings, such as Andy Griffith's
"What It Was, Was Football." In 2006, Graphic Imaging Technology's
DVD-ROM Absolutely Mad updated the original Totally Mad content through 2005. A
single seven-gigabyte disc, it is missing the same deleted material from the
1999 collection. It differs from the earlier
release in that it is Macintosh compatible.
Another Spy vs. Spy
video game was made in 2005 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows.
A Mad app was released for iPad on April 1, 2012. It displays the contents of each new issue
beginning with Mad #507, as well as video clips from Mad-TV, and material from
the magazine's website, The Idiotical.