I remember growing up in the 90s reading MAD books and magazines at Goodwill for hours on end. I would love to reread some of them and figure out what subversive ideas were placed in my mind.
I grew up reading Mad in the 80s and have read a lot of their earlier 60s and 70s work as well!
Funny you mention "subversive," though!
MAD Magazine has a "subversive" reputation, and that's certainly how I remembered it.
But when I go back and read those old issues, the overall worldview seems surprisingly (to me) very middle-class, conservative, and sort of the opposite of "subversive."
There seems to be a special kind of disdain for hippies, pot-smokers, and LGBT figures. LGBT figures in particular are always portrayed as grotesque caricatures.
They did not go easy on Ronald Reagan, but he's generally parodied as a photogenic-yet-doddering old man - it's not his arch-Republican ideals that were pilloried.
White, male, middle-class, middle-aged Americans receive a more gentle sort of parody which of course tracks with the makeup of their staff.
I still enjoy reading those old issues. I'm not criticizing it per se here; I'm just kind of amused by the disconnect between how subversive is felt to me while growing up and how conservative it reads to me now.
(I'm not too familiar with MAD from the 1990s onward. Not sure how things changed, if at all...)
That's amazing. I grew up reading Mad, and his name along with artists Sergio Aragones, Antonio Prohia, Don Martin, and Dave Berg became very familiar. It was a great introduction to satire and humor from about ages 8 to 13.
Besides the humor, one of the other things that set Mad apart from most other magazines was there were no ads. The business was sustained by newsstand sales and subscriptions by loyal readers.
When I was a kid (and subscriber!), their ads had a common theme "Why kill yourself... because you missed the last issue of MAD at the newsstand?" combined with a cartoon of a new inventive method of suicide being attempted by the forlorn reader.
I remember one particularly. It showed a man in a German WW2 helmet saying "Nein! And zat's what der dumpkopfs did, zey sent me nine" (issues of MAD)" for the price of eight!"
This story is so inspiring in the sense that Mr. Jaffee has been able to work at what he loves for most of his life. He could have retired ages ago yet he continued.
My hope is that we all find the job we love and are able to retire, at least, until our 99th birthday.
I always read Mad back in the 70s up until the early 80s growing up in Brooklyn. I went to grade school with Christopher Woodbridge the son of George Woodbridge(another Mad artist)[1]. I loved the irreverent, silly artwork and writing. My best friend and I would draw our own versions of Mad-type comics. There just wasn't anything like Mad. We would buy Cracked magazine if we couldn't find the latest Mad, but it was such an obvious copy of Mad, that we always held it against Cracked, although, it was fun too! Happy Retirement Al, and thanks for entertaining me for many years growing up in a not-so-cheerful neighborhood!
I was a Mad Magazine collector as a kid and my dad still subscribes to this day to keep the tradition going. I have fond memories of going to their NYC headquarters as a kid and having various comics/editors sign my Mad merch.
The article mentions the "staff’s storied annual trips to far-flung vacation spots" that were paid for by the magazine. I recall years ago hearing an interview in which one of them told the story that one year they vacationed in the Dominican Republic(?), where they had a single subscriber in the whole country. So, the entire crew showed up at his house to deliver that month's issue.
This is somehow especially funny to me since I remember a Mad feature about the extreme and impractical lengths to which magazines concerned about their circulation numbers would go to impress and retain subscribers. Maybe there was a little bit of disguised autobiography in there!
“I never met two wives who could get along with each other,” Gaines said at the time. “Bringing wives on the trips would divide the convivial MAD group into cliques. The wives would spend so much on clothing trying to outdo each other that it would cost the boys a fortune, and I can’t see any point to that.”
These guys (and it was all guys) were from a completely different generation. I mean, I don't even know what to say to Gaines' answer in this interview[0]
RINGGENBERG: How would you describe yourself politically, Mr. Gaines?
GAINES: I am part-liberal, part-conservative. It depends on which part you're talking about. In foreign policy I'm a conservative. In domestic policy, in things having to do with sex, abortion, pornography, and what have you, I'm completely liberal.
RINGGENBERG: So I guess you feel that almost anything goes as far as publishing?
GAINES: Yep.
RINGGENBERG: What about something like child pornography?
GAINES: I personally have no objection to it. They might arrest the guys for what they did to the kids, but I don't have any objection to the pictures they took.
When i was a child, MAD had a fake credit card on the back. My dad's office had a laminator. We cut out the fake cards, laminated them, then when we'd go out for a meal, he'd "let me pay"with my American Impress card... So many laughs were had with such a juvenile gimmick...i miss those days!
Definitely enjoyed them as a kid, but never realized how cool they were (or considered how much they may have shaped my sense of humor - always attributed that to shows like Chapelle’s show around that time).
Ran into a website with creative UPC symbols recently and couldn't help but think of how the Mad staff has been having fun with them since introduction.
As a kid (mid 90s) I remember acquiring some issues from the 50s and 60s. My impression was:
1. The artwork was way more compelling in the 50s into the 70s. More detailed, literally darker, somewhat more inspired by comic books.
2. Most of the humor was absolutely foreign to me. Except jaffees stuff, which seemed timeless.
The fold ins sometimes didn't land, but some of that was too specific to events that didn't resonate.
I was a fan of Dave Bergs stuff for the same reason. His political humor generally could be made current with minor tweaks.
Also can anyone explain the longevity of these Mad stalwarts?