1996, first edition, from Little, Brown and Company
Compiled and interior design by Grant Geissman (but yes, being alphabetized under M for MAD)
MAD About the Seventies: The Best of the Decade by "The Usual Gang of Idiots"
Original price $19.95, purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
C+
If this actually were the best of the decade in which I became a MAD reader, I'd rate it higher. But I didn't really feel like there was anything classic here. (One of the best things I ever saw in MAD was their pairing of quotes from Watergate and Alice in Wonderland, but it's not here. Nor is their classic Diff'rent Jokes parody, although that might've been from 1980.) I'd start warming up to the book a bit, and then there would be something offensive. (Could Dick DeBartolo not have said something to Larry Siegel when the Star Roars parody they cowrote has "a fag robot"?) Ironically, one the things that Geissman thinks wouldn't work twenty years later because of political correctness, the feature about the futility of arguing with a bigot, is actually still pertinent.
The look of the book is nice, with color sections for things like issue covers. The dimensions are the same as an issue, although of course much thicker. It's not a bad collection, but it didn't make me laugh.
Showing posts with label MAD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MAD. Show all posts
Monday, October 21, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Good Days and MAD: A Hysterical Tour Behind the Scenes at MAD Magazine
1994, first edition, from Thunder's Mouth Press
Dick DeBartolo
Good Days and MAD: A [crossed-out] Historical [replaced by] Hysterical Tour Behind the Scenes at MAD Magazine
Original price $29.95, purchase price $9.95
Hardcover in good condition
B-
I don't think this is as good as Frank Jacobs's MAD World of William M. Gaines (1973), but I do recommend reading them both if possible, since this updates by a couple decades the lives of Gaines and his magazine. Gaines died in 1992, and DeBartolo, who had a close, teasing friendship with him, clearly misses him. At one point, they had closer contact than expected, when they went separately to the same prostitute in Thailand, a wilder MAD trip than any in Jacob's book. What's really odd is DeBartolo is gay (his first wedding anniversary was a couple days ago, but he and his partner had been together 32 years at that point), yet no mention is made of this in the book. Was DeBartolo bi, experimenting, or what? And what did the sometimes personally conservative Gaines think of this?
That may sound like a side-issue, but I think it's representational of the nothing-fully-explained, meandering quality of the book. Jacobs didn't go strictly chronologically either, but I felt like his book had more focus, and more depth. This is just a fun collection of stories and articles and photos (many in color), with something like fourteen "forewords" by MAD staffers scattered throughout the book. Jacobs, now still alive and writing for MAD at age 84, of course quotes from his own Gaines book. DeBartolo is much younger, 67, having first contributed to MAD in high school. (And he was the one who made Match Game dirtier and hence funnier.)
By 1994, I'd long since stopped reading MAD on a regular basis, in part because I didn't like some of the changes in the magazine after Gaines's death, including allowing advertising. Some of the material here is familiar to me but much of it I never saw in its first appearance. Every few years I read an issue-- I well remember reading the parody Harry Plodder and the Torture of the Fanbase and noting that they used the book subplots, like Ron and Hermione as prefects-- but it's definitely not as big a part of my life as when I was young. Appropriately enough, the next MAD book we're coming up to (and possibly the last) is 1996's MAD About the Seventies....
Dick DeBartolo
Good Days and MAD: A [crossed-out] Historical [replaced by] Hysterical Tour Behind the Scenes at MAD Magazine
Original price $29.95, purchase price $9.95
Hardcover in good condition
B-
I don't think this is as good as Frank Jacobs's MAD World of William M. Gaines (1973), but I do recommend reading them both if possible, since this updates by a couple decades the lives of Gaines and his magazine. Gaines died in 1992, and DeBartolo, who had a close, teasing friendship with him, clearly misses him. At one point, they had closer contact than expected, when they went separately to the same prostitute in Thailand, a wilder MAD trip than any in Jacob's book. What's really odd is DeBartolo is gay (his first wedding anniversary was a couple days ago, but he and his partner had been together 32 years at that point), yet no mention is made of this in the book. Was DeBartolo bi, experimenting, or what? And what did the sometimes personally conservative Gaines think of this?
That may sound like a side-issue, but I think it's representational of the nothing-fully-explained, meandering quality of the book. Jacobs didn't go strictly chronologically either, but I felt like his book had more focus, and more depth. This is just a fun collection of stories and articles and photos (many in color), with something like fourteen "forewords" by MAD staffers scattered throughout the book. Jacobs, now still alive and writing for MAD at age 84, of course quotes from his own Gaines book. DeBartolo is much younger, 67, having first contributed to MAD in high school. (And he was the one who made Match Game dirtier and hence funnier.)
By 1994, I'd long since stopped reading MAD on a regular basis, in part because I didn't like some of the changes in the magazine after Gaines's death, including allowing advertising. Some of the material here is familiar to me but much of it I never saw in its first appearance. Every few years I read an issue-- I well remember reading the parody Harry Plodder and the Torture of the Fanbase and noting that they used the book subplots, like Ron and Hermione as prefects-- but it's definitely not as big a part of my life as when I was young. Appropriately enough, the next MAD book we're coming up to (and possibly the last) is 1996's MAD About the Seventies....
Monday, March 11, 2013
MAD, Volume 2
1986, first edition, from Russ Cochran, Publisher
MAD, Volume 2
Bought newish for unknown
Worn hardcover
C
Well, this is better than the first volume. There are still the pointless text-only stories (this time a series with "BVDs" as a parody of the "KGB"), and Kurtzman's drawn-as-well-as-written Hey, Look! comic strip (and the man is even less of an artist than a writer), but the artists, Bill Elder in particular, are hitting their stride. Also the ads for MAD and its sister publication PANIC (by Kurtzman's successor as MAD's editor) have a nice satiric edge that's often missing from the movie and comic-book parodies. By the time we get to #12, with not only the classic "Starchie" but a "high-class intellectual" cover, MAD is sometimes actually funny. True, the parodies of "Mark Trail" and "From Here to Eternity" are pretty forgettable, but the 3-D piece has some good concepts.
If I haven't said anything about the constant sexism (and occasional racism of the "cannibal" sort) in both volumes, it's because when the writing is this mediocre, I don't really expect any sort of nuance or sensitivity.
MAD, Volume 2
Bought newish for unknown
Worn hardcover
C
Well, this is better than the first volume. There are still the pointless text-only stories (this time a series with "BVDs" as a parody of the "KGB"), and Kurtzman's drawn-as-well-as-written Hey, Look! comic strip (and the man is even less of an artist than a writer), but the artists, Bill Elder in particular, are hitting their stride. Also the ads for MAD and its sister publication PANIC (by Kurtzman's successor as MAD's editor) have a nice satiric edge that's often missing from the movie and comic-book parodies. By the time we get to #12, with not only the classic "Starchie" but a "high-class intellectual" cover, MAD is sometimes actually funny. True, the parodies of "Mark Trail" and "From Here to Eternity" are pretty forgettable, but the 3-D piece has some good concepts.
If I haven't said anything about the constant sexism (and occasional racism of the "cannibal" sort) in both volumes, it's because when the writing is this mediocre, I don't really expect any sort of nuance or sensitivity.
MAD, Volume 1
1986, first edition, from Russ Cochran, Publisher
MAD, Volume 1
Bought newish for unknown
Worn hardcover
C-
Like I said back in the '50s, I think Harvey Kurtzman is over-rated, and certainly this collection of the first six issues of MAD shows why. He seems to have almost no concept of how to set up a joke, some of the endings to the stories being particularly ham-fisted, such as "Yes, Dear Reader! The machine did break!" and "For, you see...Bumble...Fumbled!", both in issue #1. That said, he improves somewhat as things go along, although the text-only stories, like the Cosmo McMoon ones, never work. It is nice to see the artwork in color, although it also is not great to start out with. I like the interviews with Kurtzman and Gaines, including their memories of how the outrageous "Publisher of the Issue" profile got in the magazine while Kurtman was in the hospital. It figures that the funniest piece in the first half dozen issues had to sneak in behind his back.
"'I don' care if it don't gotta plot! I don' care if it don't got grammar! I don' care if the pitchers ain't from talent! All I care is get into every story sadism, snakes, masochism, pyromania, snakes, fetishes, snakes, necrophilia, phallic symbols, snakes, and all the rest of that esoterica what I can't think of this minute.'" Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I rest my case.
OK, OK, Exhibit B to follow....
MAD, Volume 1
Bought newish for unknown
Worn hardcover
C-
Like I said back in the '50s, I think Harvey Kurtzman is over-rated, and certainly this collection of the first six issues of MAD shows why. He seems to have almost no concept of how to set up a joke, some of the endings to the stories being particularly ham-fisted, such as "Yes, Dear Reader! The machine did break!" and "For, you see...Bumble...Fumbled!", both in issue #1. That said, he improves somewhat as things go along, although the text-only stories, like the Cosmo McMoon ones, never work. It is nice to see the artwork in color, although it also is not great to start out with. I like the interviews with Kurtzman and Gaines, including their memories of how the outrageous "Publisher of the Issue" profile got in the magazine while Kurtman was in the hospital. It figures that the funniest piece in the first half dozen issues had to sneak in behind his back.
"'I don' care if it don't gotta plot! I don' care if it don't got grammar! I don' care if the pitchers ain't from talent! All I care is get into every story sadism, snakes, masochism, pyromania, snakes, fetishes, snakes, necrophilia, phallic symbols, snakes, and all the rest of that esoterica what I can't think of this minute.'" Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I rest my case.
OK, OK, Exhibit B to follow....
Saturday, September 29, 2012
MAD's Vastly Overrated Al Jaffee
1976, possibly first edition, from Warner Books
Al Jaffee
MAD's Vastly Overrated Al Jaffee
Possibly bought new for $3.95
Very worn paperback, with last page coming loose
B-
A collection of "lowlights" written and/or illustrated by Jaffee, covering from 1957 to the then present. Not only are there several fold-ins (with before and after versions) and some "Snappy Answers," but there are lesser known recurring features like "Hawks & Doves," "The MAD Hate Book," and my personal favorite, "MAD's Puzzle Page," as well as some interesting one-shots. "If Kids Designed Their Own Xmas Toys" is probably the best of the latter. Among the guest artists are Bob Clarke, who does a surprisingly dead-on parody of Charles Addams; and Wally Wood, illustrating "World Leaders," ca. 1960, including Ike, JFK, Nixon, Eleanor Roosevelt, De Gaulle, Brigitte Bardot, Jack Parr, and Elvis!
The most important thing to keep in mind when reading Al Jaffee is that he had an uncanny ability to predict future inventions, and that the things he humorously suggested really weren't yet around three or four decades ago. In this book alone, we see precursors to spell-check ("idiot-proof typewriters"), gimmicky postal stamps, the mute button on a remote, the breathalyzer, and the mechanical bull (well, horse).
As with the Snappy Answers book from 1972, this is entertaining but not hilarious. Also, I got tired of the mild sexism, though he's hardly the worst MAD contributor for that.
Al Jaffee
MAD's Vastly Overrated Al Jaffee
Possibly bought new for $3.95
Very worn paperback, with last page coming loose
B-
A collection of "lowlights" written and/or illustrated by Jaffee, covering from 1957 to the then present. Not only are there several fold-ins (with before and after versions) and some "Snappy Answers," but there are lesser known recurring features like "Hawks & Doves," "The MAD Hate Book," and my personal favorite, "MAD's Puzzle Page," as well as some interesting one-shots. "If Kids Designed Their Own Xmas Toys" is probably the best of the latter. Among the guest artists are Bob Clarke, who does a surprisingly dead-on parody of Charles Addams; and Wally Wood, illustrating "World Leaders," ca. 1960, including Ike, JFK, Nixon, Eleanor Roosevelt, De Gaulle, Brigitte Bardot, Jack Parr, and Elvis!
The most important thing to keep in mind when reading Al Jaffee is that he had an uncanny ability to predict future inventions, and that the things he humorously suggested really weren't yet around three or four decades ago. In this book alone, we see precursors to spell-check ("idiot-proof typewriters"), gimmicky postal stamps, the mute button on a remote, the breathalyzer, and the mechanical bull (well, horse).
As with the Snappy Answers book from 1972, this is entertaining but not hilarious. Also, I got tired of the mild sexism, though he's hardly the worst MAD contributor for that.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
The MAD World of William M. Gaines
1973, 1974 Bantam edition
Frank Jacobs
The MAD World of William M. Gaines
Original price unknown, bought used for 50 cents (cheap)
Very worn paperback
B
Jacobs, the MAD writer who'd been contributing to the magazine the longest (15 years at that point), tells the publisher's life story in the form of anecdotes. (When Jacobs does finally get around to revealing Gaines's birthday, it's so he can put the man's horoscope.) It's a nice, fun, sort of light read, although it does address Gaines's sexism, paternalism, and contradictions. Much of the book isn't even about MAD, since the E.C. horror comics get quite a bit of attention, including Gaines's infamous testimony before a Senate subcommittee, in which he said that a beheading had been tastefully drawn. Jacobs also discusses Gaines's falling out with original MAD editor Harvey Kurtzman. Gaines and Kurtzman made up eventually, and the latter returned to MAD a few years before the two men died within months of each other.
Dick DeBartolo also wrote a book about Bill Gaines, which we'll get to in 1994. And about halfway between the publication of the two books, I met the MAD publisher. It was the summer of 1983, and I went to New York City for the first and only time, with my cousin and aunt. We ended up on Madison Avenue, and my cousin and I, both devoted MAD readers, decided to look for "485 MADison Avenue," as the address was always listed. We found the building and then we went inside to read the directory. Then we took the elevator up to the office. Every step of the way, my aunt was skeptical, but my cousin and I wanted to see how far we could take this. It ended up with the receptionist asking if we wanted to meet Bill Gaines. Of course we said yes.
He was very welcoming, but when he noticed my aunt's T-shirt from an anti-nuke march in NYC, and she said how nice all the people at the march were, he snapped, "Well, they've gone home now!" And that, as much as his girth and long hair and beard, told us that he was the real Bill Gaines.
Frank Jacobs
The MAD World of William M. Gaines
Original price unknown, bought used for 50 cents (cheap)
Very worn paperback
B
Jacobs, the MAD writer who'd been contributing to the magazine the longest (15 years at that point), tells the publisher's life story in the form of anecdotes. (When Jacobs does finally get around to revealing Gaines's birthday, it's so he can put the man's horoscope.) It's a nice, fun, sort of light read, although it does address Gaines's sexism, paternalism, and contradictions. Much of the book isn't even about MAD, since the E.C. horror comics get quite a bit of attention, including Gaines's infamous testimony before a Senate subcommittee, in which he said that a beheading had been tastefully drawn. Jacobs also discusses Gaines's falling out with original MAD editor Harvey Kurtzman. Gaines and Kurtzman made up eventually, and the latter returned to MAD a few years before the two men died within months of each other.
Dick DeBartolo also wrote a book about Bill Gaines, which we'll get to in 1994. And about halfway between the publication of the two books, I met the MAD publisher. It was the summer of 1983, and I went to New York City for the first and only time, with my cousin and aunt. We ended up on Madison Avenue, and my cousin and I, both devoted MAD readers, decided to look for "485 MADison Avenue," as the address was always listed. We found the building and then we went inside to read the directory. Then we took the elevator up to the office. Every step of the way, my aunt was skeptical, but my cousin and I wanted to see how far we could take this. It ended up with the receptionist asking if we wanted to meet Bill Gaines. Of course we said yes.
He was very welcoming, but when he noticed my aunt's T-shirt from an anti-nuke march in NYC, and she said how nice all the people at the march were, he snapped, "Well, they've gone home now!" And that, as much as his girth and long hair and beard, told us that he was the real Bill Gaines.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
More Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions
1972, 1979 Warner edition
Al Jaffee
MAD's Al Jaffee Spews Out More Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions
Possibly bought new for $1.50
Nonetheless, paperback in decent condition, although writing inside (see below)
B-
I think these were funnier when I was a kid. This time, I smiled but didn't laugh. In some cases, Jaffee provides blank balloons for you to come up with your own answers, and I filled out a few of these long ago. Like when the old lady asks the last of several children walking into a building labeled "PUBLIC SCHOOL" if it's his school, I wrote, "No, it's a midget convention." If Jaffee can't be funnier than an 11-year-old, it's not saying much.
Overall, the book isn't very topical, but there is a picture of a very ugly woman, the only female member of a gang of crooks, and she has a tattoo on her arm of the feminist fist. In the background, there's a pin-up on the wall of "Miss Gunmoll," maybe to show the contrast of fantasy to reality? Oh, Mr. Jaffee, I've got a couple questions for you about this....
Al Jaffee
MAD's Al Jaffee Spews Out More Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions
Possibly bought new for $1.50
Nonetheless, paperback in decent condition, although writing inside (see below)
B-
I think these were funnier when I was a kid. This time, I smiled but didn't laugh. In some cases, Jaffee provides blank balloons for you to come up with your own answers, and I filled out a few of these long ago. Like when the old lady asks the last of several children walking into a building labeled "PUBLIC SCHOOL" if it's his school, I wrote, "No, it's a midget convention." If Jaffee can't be funnier than an 11-year-old, it's not saying much.
Overall, the book isn't very topical, but there is a picture of a very ugly woman, the only female member of a gang of crooks, and she has a tattoo on her arm of the feminist fist. In the background, there's a pin-up on the wall of "Miss Gunmoll," maybe to show the contrast of fantasy to reality? Oh, Mr. Jaffee, I've got a couple questions for you about this....
Monday, August 20, 2012
MADvertising, or Up Madison Ave.
1972, two copies, one undated from Signet, the other 1979 from Warner
Written by Dick DeBartolo
Illustrated by Bob Clarke
MADvertising, or Up Madison Ave.
Original prices $1.25 and $1.50, purchase prices unknown and 35 cents respectively
Both very worn paperbacks but the latter is falling apart
C+
The better (although probably earlier) copy belonged to my then-future-ex-brother-in-law, who must've got it in junior high, because he wrote his classroom numbers, along with his name. The front covers are different but the content seems to be the same, even the two-page spread for "Freak Out Flights," the hippie airline. I find Clarke's artwork a little bland (even when he's drawing sexy girls), and DeBartolo's writing is sharper in A MAD Look at Old Movies. Probably the best insight is how film critics' words are often taken out of context, e.g. "What could have been a very funny film...." So in that spirit, this is neither the best nor the worst MAD book I've ever read.
Written by Dick DeBartolo
Illustrated by Bob Clarke
MADvertising, or Up Madison Ave.
Original prices $1.25 and $1.50, purchase prices unknown and 35 cents respectively
Both very worn paperbacks but the latter is falling apart
C+
The better (although probably earlier) copy belonged to my then-future-ex-brother-in-law, who must've got it in junior high, because he wrote his classroom numbers, along with his name. The front covers are different but the content seems to be the same, even the two-page spread for "Freak Out Flights," the hippie airline. I find Clarke's artwork a little bland (even when he's drawing sexy girls), and DeBartolo's writing is sharper in A MAD Look at Old Movies. Probably the best insight is how film critics' words are often taken out of context, e.g. "What could have been a very funny film...." So in that spirit, this is neither the best nor the worst MAD book I've ever read.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
A MAD Look at Old Movies
1966, 1974 Warner edition
Written by Dick DeBartolo
Illustrated by Jack Davis & Mort Drucker
A MAD Look at Old Movies
Bought newish for 95 cents
Falling apart paperback
B-
A few of the "Usual Gang of Idiots" parody Tarzan, Shirley Temple/National Velvet, mysteries, and show-biz-centered musicals. Although I prefer Drucker's art to Davis's, including Marlon Brando cast as Tarzan (the mumbling maybe?), the Davis-illustrated stories are better written, "Little Miss Wishy Washy" in particular. Most of the humor is un-topical, except in "Tarzan Faces Tsuris" (Yiddish for "trouble"), where the natives dance the Watusi. Drucker also draws naked (but not detailed) women in that story, although the most suggestive picture is Fran wrapped in curve-hugging bandages in "The Case of the Murderer Who Killed."
I chuckled a few times, and got more of the jokes than I did when I first read this around the age of 8.
Written by Dick DeBartolo
Illustrated by Jack Davis & Mort Drucker
A MAD Look at Old Movies
Bought newish for 95 cents
Falling apart paperback
B-
A few of the "Usual Gang of Idiots" parody Tarzan, Shirley Temple/National Velvet, mysteries, and show-biz-centered musicals. Although I prefer Drucker's art to Davis's, including Marlon Brando cast as Tarzan (the mumbling maybe?), the Davis-illustrated stories are better written, "Little Miss Wishy Washy" in particular. Most of the humor is un-topical, except in "Tarzan Faces Tsuris" (Yiddish for "trouble"), where the natives dance the Watusi. Drucker also draws naked (but not detailed) women in that story, although the most suggestive picture is Fran wrapped in curve-hugging bandages in "The Case of the Murderer Who Killed."
I chuckled a few times, and got more of the jokes than I did when I first read this around the age of 8.
Friday, June 15, 2012
The Bedside MAD
1956, 1964 Signet edition
The Bedside MAD
Original price 50 cents, purchase price 25 cents
Worn and waterlogged paperback
C
A disappointing successor to The MAD Reader, this contains mostly unfunny and/or forgettable stories. Only "Restaurant!", with the detailed Bill Elder art and a description of a family dining at a "chow-mein restaurant (popular in big cities)," and "Robinson Crusoe," again with Bill Elder craziness and better than average writing from Kurtzman (including a surprisingly enviromentalist message), feel fresh and original. There's nothing terrible, except for some of the Jack Davis illustrations, but it's hard to believe that this is a "Best of."
The Bedside MAD
Original price 50 cents, purchase price 25 cents
Worn and waterlogged paperback
C
A disappointing successor to The MAD Reader, this contains mostly unfunny and/or forgettable stories. Only "Restaurant!", with the detailed Bill Elder art and a description of a family dining at a "chow-mein restaurant (popular in big cities)," and "Robinson Crusoe," again with Bill Elder craziness and better than average writing from Kurtzman (including a surprisingly enviromentalist message), feel fresh and original. There's nothing terrible, except for some of the Jack Davis illustrations, but it's hard to believe that this is a "Best of."
Friday, June 8, 2012
The MAD Reader
1954, 1973 Ballantine edition
The MAD Reader
Original price 75 cents, purchase price 65 cents
Very worn paperback
B-
I grew up reading MAD Magazine, including reprints of issues from the 1950s and '60s. But I will freely admit that the funniest thing in this collection is the "vital message from Roger Price." The creator of "Droodles" (which we'll get to in the '60s, for reasons I'll explain then) and co-creator of Mad Libs (no relation to MAD Magazine) was one of the funniest post-WWII writers, and he contributed a bit to MAD in the mid-'50s. (If I remember correctly, the hilarious satire of bull-fighting, about the "sport" of dog-kicking, was his.)
The rest of the writing here is mostly by the over-rated Harvey Kurtzman. I've always maintained that MAD did a pmuj (reverse shark-jump) when he left and they got "The Usual Gang of Idiots." The best thing about the comic book days is the artwork, but reproduced smaller and in black and white it definitely loses something, particularly the detailed illustrations by Bill Elder. (I've got late '80s color reprints of the earliest comics, so we'll revisit this much later.)
Still, there's enough here to enjoy in this early "best of," including the satires Dragged Net! ("Dom Badomm Dom!"), Gasoline Valley! (funnier than ever since the characters are still aging six decades later, although "Alexander Bumpstead" no longer does), and of course Starchie (no exclamation point). The last of these remains one of the best things ever in MAD, and I say that as someone who also grew up reading Archie comics. Everything in this satire is "typical teen-age" something, they make fun of the jagged-line in phone conversations, there's gratuitous nudity (of "Wedgie"), gratuitous drug humor, and a not at all gratuitous question: Why does Starchie prefer Salonica to Biddy?
At the time of these early MADs, comics were coming under fire, the "media that's corrupting our children" of that era (compare rap music or violent video games in the '90s). It was mostly comic magazines that were targeted, although Walt Kelly faced some censorship in the newspapers. E.C. (publisher Gaines's "Educational Comics") got into more trouble over its horror comics, but MAD was also controversial. One of the better Jack-Davis-drawn stories is Newspapers!, pointing out the hypocrisy of grown-ups being horrified by comic books when there were equal outrages in their reading material.
The best of the Wally-Wood-illustrated stories is Flesh Garden!, which is not all that different from the title of the 1974 porno satire, Flesh Gordon. (No, I've never seen it.)
The MAD Reader
Original price 75 cents, purchase price 65 cents
Very worn paperback
B-
I grew up reading MAD Magazine, including reprints of issues from the 1950s and '60s. But I will freely admit that the funniest thing in this collection is the "vital message from Roger Price." The creator of "Droodles" (which we'll get to in the '60s, for reasons I'll explain then) and co-creator of Mad Libs (no relation to MAD Magazine) was one of the funniest post-WWII writers, and he contributed a bit to MAD in the mid-'50s. (If I remember correctly, the hilarious satire of bull-fighting, about the "sport" of dog-kicking, was his.)
The rest of the writing here is mostly by the over-rated Harvey Kurtzman. I've always maintained that MAD did a pmuj (reverse shark-jump) when he left and they got "The Usual Gang of Idiots." The best thing about the comic book days is the artwork, but reproduced smaller and in black and white it definitely loses something, particularly the detailed illustrations by Bill Elder. (I've got late '80s color reprints of the earliest comics, so we'll revisit this much later.)
Still, there's enough here to enjoy in this early "best of," including the satires Dragged Net! ("Dom Badomm Dom!"), Gasoline Valley! (funnier than ever since the characters are still aging six decades later, although "Alexander Bumpstead" no longer does), and of course Starchie (no exclamation point). The last of these remains one of the best things ever in MAD, and I say that as someone who also grew up reading Archie comics. Everything in this satire is "typical teen-age" something, they make fun of the jagged-line in phone conversations, there's gratuitous nudity (of "Wedgie"), gratuitous drug humor, and a not at all gratuitous question: Why does Starchie prefer Salonica to Biddy?
At the time of these early MADs, comics were coming under fire, the "media that's corrupting our children" of that era (compare rap music or violent video games in the '90s). It was mostly comic magazines that were targeted, although Walt Kelly faced some censorship in the newspapers. E.C. (publisher Gaines's "Educational Comics") got into more trouble over its horror comics, but MAD was also controversial. One of the better Jack-Davis-drawn stories is Newspapers!, pointing out the hypocrisy of grown-ups being horrified by comic books when there were equal outrages in their reading material.
The best of the Wally-Wood-illustrated stories is Flesh Garden!, which is not all that different from the title of the 1974 porno satire, Flesh Gordon. (No, I've never seen it.)
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