By “The Usual Gang of Idiots†& edited by John Ficarra (Time Home Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-61893-030-9
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a truly timeless tome bringing back a golden age of laughter – no matter how young you are… 10/10
EC Comics began in 1944 when comicbook pioneer Max Gaines sold the superhero properties of his All-American Comics company to half-sister National/DC, retaining only Picture Stories from the Bible. His plan was to produce a line of Educational Comics with schools and church groups as the major target market.
Gaines augmented this core title with Picture Stories from American History, Picture Stories from Science and Picture Stories from World History, but the so-worthy notion was already struggling when he died in a boating accident in 1947.
With disaster looming, his son William was dragged into the family business and with much support and encouragement from unsung hero Sol Cohen – who held the company together until the initially unwilling Bill Gaines abandoned his dreams of a career in chemistry – transformed the ailing enterprise into Entertaining Comics…
After a few tentative false starts and abortive experiments, Gaines and his multi-talented associate Al Feldstein settled into a bold, fresh publishing strategy, utilising the most gifted illustrators in the field to tell a “New Trend†of stories aimed at an older and more discerning readership.
From 1950 to 1954 EC was the most innovative and influential publisher in America, dominating the genres of crime, horror, war and science fiction, spawning a host of cash-in imitations and, under the auspices of writer, artist and editor Harvey Kurtzman, the inventor of an entirely new beast: the satirical comicbook…
Mad also inspired dozens of knock-offs and even a controversial sister publication, Panic.
Kurtzman was a cartoon genius and probably the most important cartoonist of the last half of the 20th century. His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Mad, Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat) would be enough for most creators to lean back on, but Kurtzman was a force in newspaper strips (See Flash Gordon Complete Daily Strips 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, a commentator and social explorer who kept on looking at folk and their doings: a man with exacting standards who just couldn’t stop creating.
He invented a whole new format and gave the USA Populist Satire when he transformed his highly successful full-colour comicbook baby Mad into a mainstream monochrome magazine, safely distancing the outrageously comedic publication from fall-out caused by the 1950s socio-political witch-hunt which eventually killed all EC’s other titles, and bringing the now more socially acceptable publication to a far wider, broader audience.
He pursued his unique brand of thoughtfully outré comedy and social satire with the magazines Trump, Humbug and Help!, all the while conceiving challenging and powerfully effective humour strips such as Little Annie Fannie (for Playboy), The Jungle Book, Nutz, Goodman Beaver, and Betsy and her Buddies. Seemingly tireless, he also inspired the next generation through his creations on Sesame Street and with his teaching of cartooning at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He died far too early in 1993.
…And he was just one of the astonishingly gifted creators who have turned Mad into a staggeringly influential cultural phenomenon and global brand in the intervening years…
Just in time to be an ideal gift, and celebrating the history and progress of an institution we all grew up with if not in, Totally Mad reviews the rise and rise of the magazine with tantalising snippets of gags and features accompanied by great big buckets of captivating excerpts and illustrations from the many brilliant creators who have contributed to its success.
Be Warned: this is not a “best of†collection – it would be impossible to choose, and besides there are hundreds of reprint book compilations and websites for that. This is a celebration of past and present glories and a compulsive taster for further exploration, but with very few complete stories…
At 256 pages this huge (312x235mm) and luxurious compendium includes historical articles, hundreds of pages of amazingly funny art and cleverly barbed observations, divided by decades and augmented by hundreds of full-colour, iconic cover reproductions, referencing favourite features such as Spy vs Spy (both by originator Antonio Prohias and successor Peter Kuper), Mad Fold-Ins, Al Jaffee’s ‘Scenes We’d Like to See’, Dave Berg’s ‘The Lighter Side of…’, ‘Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions’, ‘Mad Mini-Posters’, whilst Film and TV parodies include ‘Gunsmoked’, ‘My Fair Ad-Man’, ‘East Side Story’, ‘Flawrence of Arabia’, ‘Star Blecch’, ‘Jaw’d’, ‘Saturday Night Feeble’, ‘LA Lewd’, ‘Dorky Dancing’, and assorted mega-movie franchises ad infinitum…
Whatever your period, and whichever is your most dearly revered, it’s probably sampled here…
Following an eccentric and loving Introduction from Stephen Colbert and Eric Drysdale -illustrated by Sam Viviano – veteran contributor Frank Jacobs provides a photo-packed profile of the magazine’s unique father-figure by asking – and answering – ‘Who Was Bill Gaines?’ after which ‘Mad in the 1950s’ recalls the Kurtzman era with brightly hued extracts from giant ape spoof ‘Ping Pong!’, ‘Superduperman!’, ‘Lone Stranger Rides Again!’, ‘Sound Effects!’, ‘Melvin of the Apes!’, ‘Mad Reader!’, ‘Bringing Back Father!’ and ‘Starchie’, highlighting the talents of Will Elder, Wallace Wood, Jack Davis, John Severin, Basil Wolverton & Bernie Krigstein, before moving into the magazine phase by spoofing advertising and popular pastimes with ‘Readers Disgust’, ‘What Makes a Glass of Beer Taste so Good?’ and more.
Arch-caricaturist Mort Drucker began his stellar run at this time as did the mildly maniacal Don Martin, whilst proven comics masters Joe Orlando, Wood, Davis and George Woodbridge reached astonishing peaks of artistic excellence with a parade of stunning covers and end-pages by Kurtzman, Kelly Freas, Norman Mingo and others proving as effective now as in your granddad’s day…
In ‘Who is Alfred E. Neuman?’, Jacobs recounts the twisted and turbulent origins of the magazine’s iconic gap-toothed-idiot mascot after which ‘Mad in the 1960s’ highlights the rise of Television and the counter-culture whilst ‘Was Mad Ever Sued?’ finds Jacobs testifying to some truly daft and troubling moments in the mag’s life…
Some of the very best bits of ‘Mad in the 1970s’ is followed by the conclusion of ‘Who Was Bill Gaines?’ after which Davis, Dick DeBartolo & Jacobs’ legendary ‘Raiders of the Lost Art’ skit opens ‘Mad in the 1980s’ as patriotism, movie blockbusters, Hip-hop and computer games seized the public’s collective imagination…
‘What Were the Mad Trips?’ explores a grand tradition of company holidays, after which the transitional years of ‘Mad in the 1990s’ covers Rap music, the rise of celeb culture and the magazine’s forays into a rapidly changing world. This is followed by ‘Mad After Gaines’ which details the internal adjustments that took place following the death of the hands-on, larger-than life publisher in 1992 whilst ‘Mad in the 2000s’ details the brand’s shift into the digital world, with exemplars from creators old and new spoofing medicines, newspaper strips, elections, dead phrases, celebrity causes, religion, cell-phones, man-boobs, war in Iraq, Obesity, satirical rival ‘The Bunion’, contemporary Racism and media sensations Donald Trump, whilst parodies included ‘Bored of the Rings’, ‘Sluts in the City’, ‘Spider-Sham’, and so much more…
Current editor John Ficarra provides a suitable Afterword and this magnificent tome also includes a poster pack of a dozen of the very best covers from Mad’s epochal run.
Most of you can happily stop now, but if you’re into shopping lists here’s just a small portion of the other contributing “idiots†who have madr the magazine a national institution… like graft and pimples:
Sergio Aragonés is represented throughout with his Mad Marginals as well as many masterful cartoons and pastiches, and writers include Vic Cohen, Tom Koch, Larry Siegel, Nick Meglin, Earl Doud, Lou Silverstone, Jacobs, DeBartolo, Arnie Kogen, Chevy Chase, Marylyn Ippolito, Max Brandel, Stan Hart, Billy Doherty, Barry Liebman, Desmond Devlin, Russ Cooper, Joe Raiola, Charlie Kadau, Robert Bramble, Michael Gallagher, Butch D’Ambrosio amongst so many others.
All-rounders both scripting and scribbling include Dave Berg, Al Jaffee, Aragonés, Don Martin, John Caldwell, Paul Peter Porges, Don “Duck†Edwing, Tom Cheney, Drew Friedman, Peter Kuper, Christopher Baldwin, Feggo and star artists making a splash range from venerable veterans such as Frank Frazetta, John Cullen Murphy and Angelo Torres to Mark Frederickson, Bob Clarke, Gary Belkin, Paul Coker Jr., Mutz, Jack Rickard, Irving Schild, Gerry Gersten, Rick Tulka, Harry North, Richard Williams, Tom Bunk, Bill Wray, Steve Brodner, Mark Stutzman, Tom Richmond, Gary Hallgren… the list is nigh endless.
Wrist-wreckingly huge, eye-poppingly great and mind-bogglingly fun, this is one all the family will be happy to pore through… and probably fight over.
© 2012 E.C. Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.