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| A Jack Davis cover for the ages. Mindboggling. How many can you identify? |
And what incredible talent was represented here. Creators such as Don Martin, Antonio Prohias (Spy vs. Spy), Sergio Aragones, Jack Davis, Al Feldstein, Paul Coker Jr., Dave Berg and many others gained popular followings among the Mad readers, and found their work spotlighted in the paperbacks.
Berg 's "Lighter Side of..." strips were among my favorites, finding innumerable foibles in modern society to puncture. Another of my faves were the tales of avian espionage that Prohias provided (I always rooted for the black spy). Those cartoons, the movie parodies, the political satires, the Madison Avenue jibes- all filled those pocket-size tomes with edgy fun (perhaps not edgy now, but back then it was). You could often find a couple of these books stashed among my comics on a family trip, or piled among the detritus in my school locker. They were a great bargain; you don't find that many laughs per page in many other books. And I loved the covers- frequently painted by Mad Magazine ace Norman Mingo, they found countless ways to beat us over the head with Alfred E. Neuman.
I give Mad a lot of credit for starting me off on the right (some would say wrong) foot. Long before I discovered Dr. Demento or Saturday Night Live, those Mad paperbacks showed me our culture in a slightly subversive, twisted mirror, and my head (thankfully) would never be the same.
14 comments:
I had SO MANY of these paperbacks at one point-- and there are still probably 10 or so on the shelf downstairs. For quite awhile they were the one way to get a glimpse into the magazine's earlier years, as that was the bulk of the reprinted material at first. In that slightly twisted way that Red alludes to, they even provided a cultural history lesson on the late 50's/very early 60's to a kid reading them in the 70's. Despite being just a few years in the past, the cultural chasm seemed immeasurable (parodies of the mysterious "Old Days", as it were).
The title that STILL gets pulled out every now & again- and is utterly falling to pieces as a result- is SING ALONG WITH MAD, which includes parodies of a couple of musicals ("My Fair Lester"), takes shots at popular trends in society (the surge in transplant operations, f'rinstance), and wraps up with a sequence of "updated" Christmas carol parodies ("Christmas Bills" aka Jingle Bells; 12 Days of Christmas-- for Jackie Onassis; "The Mail-Carrier's Lament" aka We Three Kings).
The one critique I might have is that, while some volumes could take hours to get through with their delightfully dense features (Dave Berg's, say), others could be finished in 10 minutes or so-- particularly Don Martin and Spy vs Spy collections. I loved 'em, sure-- but they were kind of junk-foody that way.
HB
I got into the mag around '71-'74, some great covers (All In The Family, Mod Squad, Catch-22, etc), but nowadays I love collecting the paperbacks and mags strictly from the early '60s. Just LOVE the vintage covers..
HB, I love those sing-alongs as well, it actually enhanced my musical knowledge to figure out what original songs they nabbed the parodies from...
Speaking of parodies, I always enjoyed when they'd have a picture on the letter page of some celebrity reading the previous issue of Mad they were parodied in.. seemed very surreal that they'd come down to our level. Most television celebs often noted that they didn't think they 'made it' until their show was featured in Mad Magazine..
Spy vs Spy was pure genius. The Dave Berg (and Don Martin) books were great as well.
And who cannot love Captain Klutz..??
I had a few, usually bought for pennies at used book stores. They were "super cheap" (see what I did there?) because they often had no covers. The only one of the above I definitely recall owning was 'Mad Sucks'. While Mad isn't what it once was, I still pick it up now and then. To its credit, in recent years they've hired people who have roots in the underground/indie comic world such as Peter Kuper.
I had a few of these, and a few friends in grade school had some more. We used to trade them around.
And yes, David, Capt. Klutz was a favorite (and pretty much all of Don Martin's stuff). Another of the Mad artists I really liked - not mentioned in the original post - is Al Jaffee.
Oh, good catch, Edo--
Al Jaffee's "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" semi-regular feature was a particular go-to favorite for my pals & me. We tended to repeat some of those ripostes over and over to the point where people would yell at us to lay off. (Sort of typical 10 to 13 year old boy behavior, really---)
HB
I had a bunch of these.
Like HB Sing Along With Mad was a fave (I can sing a bunch of the parodies by heart, and even learned about "My Fair Lady" from "My Fair Lester,") and I made sure to keep it to this day (got it as my free book pick from my public library's RIF (reading is fundamental) program. I also kept The Mad Morality, which is actually a theology book that uses stuff from MAD that EC licensed out (and that I hope to write about for the blog one of these days).
While I was familiar with MAD from my older siblings in the mid-70s, and soon discovered how bad the ones in the 80s were, my uncle gifted me a stack of MADs from the 60s and very early 70s when I was about 10 or 11 that taught me how amazing the mag had really been. It was unapologetically political in a way that really shaped me (which is probably just the kind of thing Moral Panic types were afraid of).
I did learn to appreciate the paperback collections because I could bring them to school, while the mags (like comics) could get confiscated.
I still have a few of these, though none of the ones you have on display. I think I have Fighting Mad, one or two Don Martins, Clods Letters to Mad, plus a couple others.
HB, I used to have one of the Snappy Answers ... books; each page had a blank space where you could add your own "snappy answer". Me and a friend did that (with very profane answers, as I recall) but I left the book at her house and never got it back.
Mad - never could bring myself to buy one.
Yet... when I would pick one up in a dentist's office or someplace I really enjoyed "Spy v Spy" and "Snappy Answers."
And that's that!
I really enjoyed MAD. I don't know that I had any of those shown but I had Captain Klutz I think there were two Captain Klutz books but I cannot really recall. As a kid I enjoyed Soy vs Spy. I also really enjoyed the movie spoofs. The art was really quite wonderful on those. The caricatures were uncanny.
Alfred E. Newman is such a weird and wonderful character. Talk about iconic.
Post college, I was in a band. Started by two brothers who were huge Beatles fans. Named the group The Spyders. Spelled it "Spy" cause they were also huge Spy V Spy fans. We weren't really a "garage band" because we practiced in a barn. Good times, good times...
(Wild thing, you make my heart sing
You make everything groovy, wild thing
Wild thing, I think I love you
But I wanna know for sure
Come on and hold me tight
I love you
Wild thing, you make my heart sing
You make everything groovy, wild thing
Wild thing, I think you move me
But I wanna know for sure
Come on and hold me tight
You move me
Wild thing, you make my heart sing
You make everything groovy, wild thing
Wild thing, you make my heart sing).
I loved Mort Drucker's art in those movie spoofs. Also a fan of Don Martin- one of the first faces I learned how to draw! I don't think I ever picked up a new Mad magazine, but there were tons of second hand ones. It was fun discovering the early issues from the '60s a few years ago, as I grew up with the '70s ones.
I've been reading a bunch of Will Eisner's Spirit from the late '40s, and it struck me how close some of the funnier stories are to Mad stories. Wally Wood assisted Eisner before going on to Mad.
Aragones was another favorite--Mad was just packed full of great stuff for a boy!
Thanks for the 'Mad'ness today, everyone!
HB and Dr. O- "Sing Along With Mad"- sounds like a classic. Never had that one, my loss. Those Christmas carol parodies would be plenty of fun- brings to mind the witty parodies Walt Kelly did in his "Pogo" strip. But that's a topic for another day...
J.A. and Edo- yes, a big advantage to these paperbacks were that they could often be found so cheap. A big help to a kid on an allowance, and still packed with laughs.
Prowl- "Spyders"- excellent name. And better inspirations you couldn't ask for.
Garrett- great point about those Eisner Spirit stories. Will had a vast sense of humor, evident in many of his later works. And Wood did some Spirit work that really looked fine. And speaking of Fine, Lou Fine was another...
E.C, Quality, the Eisner/Iger studio- man, talent abounded in those days.
Wasn't the first STAR TREK parody they did called "STAR BLECHH"-- something like that? It was particularly brilliant because Mort Drucker did his usual stunning caricature of the cast members, but the "alien" person they picked up in the story was drawn in by Don Martin-- looking like yer typical Don Martin figure-- and it was hilarious just seeing unflinching interaction between the two absurdly different artistic styles-- like it was just part of the show. . .heh. . .
HB
MAD magazine made the world a much richer and better place in terms of pop culture and entertainment quality. PS, Mort Drucker was a frickin' genius!
- Mike 'real life Alfred E.Newman' from Trinidad & Tobago.
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