Mad Magazine

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture by Preston Neal Jones

The phenomenon of MAD began as a comic book that poked fun at other comic books, but soon became a full-fledged magazine that poked fun at anything and everything. Although a product of the conservative, repressive 1950s, MAD was unique among contemporaneous periodicals--or any other media, for that matter--in its zeal to skewer sacred cows. Its satire, lampoons, put-ons and take-offs presented via phantasmagorically comical artwork, made MAD a particular success among younger readers. Between the MAD fans who came of age with a jaundiced view of the worlds of advertising, politics, and culture, and the MAD fans who grew up and actually joined those worlds, the magazine can be said to have become an enormous influence on contemporary American society. Moreover, MAD's influence on entertainment can be seen on everything from the television show Laugh-In to music videos on MTV. Unlike many magazines, MAD continued to thrive at the end of the twentieth century.

William M. Gaines, born in 1922, was the son of Max Gaines, publisher of comic books under the banner of "EC" or "Educational Comics." When Max died in a boating accident in 1947, William inherited the family business. Under the younger Gaines' supervision, Educational Comics was re-christened Entertaining Comics, and would eventually become known primarily for a line of gritty comics featuring crime, war, science-fiction, and--especially--horror. In the midst of the McCarthy era, Gaines' new grisly books seemed shocking in comparison to other comics. Although there was dark humor in Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, EC's war comics--Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat--distinguished themselves by a seriousness of purpose and a conscious desire to present a deglamorized view of warfare. As traditional comics became darker in tone during the late twentieth century--with Batman evolving into The Dark Knight, and the plots and visuals of many comics resembling R-rated movies, such EC titles as Tales From the Crypt and The Vault of Horror no longer seemed controversial.

Harvey Kurtzman (1924--), the writer and editor of Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline, had been educated at New York's High School of Music and Art. When Kurtzman petitioned Gaines for an increase in income, Gaines, who had noted Kurtzman's sly wit creeping into stories written for teen and western titles, offered Kurtzman the opportunity to create a bi-monthly humor book--a comic comic book. Although no one is certain how it came to be titled, the first issue of Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD was published in autumn of 1952. Kurtzman lampooned the comics he himself liked least, the crime and horror titles. What immediately made MAD unique, aside from its irreverent, irrepressible spirit, was the way in which the text and art sparked a comic alchemy which neither could have achieved alone. When Kurtzman's stories were put together with the drawings of Will Elder and John Severin, Jack Davis and Wally Wood, the result resembled a cross between Hieronymous Bosch and the Borscht Belt: The comic frames were littered with visual and verbal non-sequitors, and the distinct influence of Jewish humor was found on every page, exposing many impressionable middle American children for the first time to Yiddish words like "furshlugginer."

The first issue of MAD was far from a success. But by the fourth issue--with its "Superduperman" parody of Superman--MAD started to gain popularity. Although Superman's owner, DC Comics, threatened to bring a lawsuit, nothing came of it. Thereafter, MAD lampooned and parodied many of the comics with whom it shared newsstand rack space. America's typical teen, "Archie," became juvenile delinquent "Starchie." Donald Duck became Darnold Duck, finally wreaking his revenge against arch rival, "Mickey Rhodent." Wonder Woman became "Woman Wonder," whose boyfriend, Steve Adore, gets a prurient thrill whenever she changes into her super-heroine uniform inside her glass plane. Batman became "Bat Boy," and Robin became "Rubin," who discovered to his peril that his companion was "no furshlugginer ordinary bat boy," he was "a vampire bat boy." And virtually everybody else in comicdom became Melvin--"Melvin of the Apes," "Little Orphan Melvin," "Smilin' Melvin," etc. Ever vigilant for new targets, Kurtzman and company cast a wider net and started giving the MAD treatment to television shows, with such parodies as "Dragged Net" and "Howdy Doit"; movies, with "Stalag 18," "Hah! Noon," "Ping Pong," and "From Eternity Back to Here." Classic literature did not escape Kurtzman's wit: Kurtzman presented the poetry of Poe and others verbatim, but illustrated with incongruous lunacy by MAD's artists. Kurtzman and company even had the audacity to tackle the Army-McCarthy hearings in "What's My Shine," which treated the controversial Senate proceedings as if they were a TV game show.

Soon MAD was more popular with children and teens than some of the comics it had spoofed. Its unprecedented and unexpected success led to a host of imitators, none lasting more than a few issues. MAD's popularity would eventually prove a life-saver for Gaines, who, along with other comics publishers, began to come under fire in 1953 from journalists, social critics, and senators for his line of crime and horror comics. The upshot of all this unwelcome attention on the industry was the formation of the Comics Code Authority, which Gaines refused to join, but which enacted a ban against certain words in comics, words such as "horror," "terror," and "crime," words which provided Gaines' EC with 80 percent of its profits. Pressured by distributors, Gaines eventually abandoned his horror titles. Since MAD was just about his only successful title left and since MAD did not conform to the Comics Code, Gaines came to an inevitable decision: upgrade MAD from comic book to magazine.