Mad Magazine. Who Loved It As A Kid? (Or An Adult)

Looks like the local pizza guy who forgets the pizza.

 

I loved Mad when I was a kid and stopped reading it as an adult. I think it was because the magazine deteriorated, not because I grew up.

The Don Martin comics were my favorites.

 

Brings back fond old memories.

 

I believe this move is officially known as "The Fonebone".

 

Count me in as one who loved Mad when I was a kid int he '60s & '70s. I liked it through the '80s as well. One of the panels I've always loved was of the one showing the evolution of man which starts off and then ends up going back to the very point they started. I also loved the Deep Space Nine spoof which showed Odo in his blob-like form staring up under a lady's skirt over at Quark's Bar.

 

bounces

 

Av Shmov Kapop

 

You must have gone to the School of Visual Arts in NYC, Jeff. I graduated from there in 1983. I had all of those teachers that you mentioned plus Will ("The Spirit") Eisner. I just took out a new book from the library called "A Dreamer's Life In Comics - Will Eisner" which talks quite a bit about Kurtzman, Spiegelman and Eisner and their stints teaching there at SVA.

Speaking of MAD and Don Martin, I picked up the complete 2 volume set of Don Martin's work ("The Completely MAD Don Martin") back when it was on sale at Barnes & Noble for around $25. The set's back up to around $95 (srp: $150) at Amazon now, though. He was always a favorite cartoonist of mine. When I was still a kid, I got an encouraging letter back from Don Martin on MAD stationery (when they were at 485 MADison Avenue) after I sent him a cartoon of mine. It was probably a form letter of sorts, but the signature was real and it was still a big thrill for a kid like me to receive back then.

 

It breaks my heart to retell this story. When I was a kid, a friend of my dad's gave me his collection of Mad magazines. However, not just any collection but a full run from probably about 1965 to about 1984 or so. My mom however happened to be flipping through one of them one day and got horrifically offended by something or other in one of them and threw out the whole box.

Breaks my heart to this day . . .

 

That's an awesome letter!

 

I remember my older brother bringing home the issue with the "It's A Gas" flexi when I was maybe nine years old. Probably the hardest I'd laughed in my life up to that point.

 

No SH thread can go six pages without...

 

Actually, mine didn't have the roll of toilet paper. The set I have is "Totally Mad". 7CD ROM collection of every issue of the magazine until 1998. I'm surprised it still runs on my machine. The last OP system listed is Windows NT. The set came in a CD sized box shrinkwrapped.

 

How about Sick?

 

That's the one John Severin did a lot of work for?

 

I do...there was also one called SICK wasn't there? Mad, Crazy, Cracked and Sick.


OOOPS...Just noticed 2 posts above me.

 

The fact that it's not funny anymore doesn't seem to help.

 

Severin started at MAD, but he was the main man at Cracked.

 

Remember in the 80s when Don Martin left MAD & went to Cracked? I'm sure that was a big blow to MAD fans, but it didn't really matter to me since I read both.

 

I had a subscription for years. My mother wasn't too happy when she took this issue out of the mailbox.

 

You're lucky.
When I was about 13 I sent MAD a couple ideas for cover art including a full color mock-up of a cover that I designed. I never heard a word from them.

 

That's cool. I really liked Sam Vivianos' work in MAD. Very Mort Drucker-like charicature art in his movie/tv satire pieces.

 

My gosh, we loved MAD magazine when we were kids in the 70s and early 80s. I bought every issue religiously then, and I still have them. I don't care for the paperbacks as much, so I gave those to my brother in law. I ordered the Alfred E. Neuman portrait too, which I hung in my locker in middle school (my brother in law has the Alfred bust). One of my first dates with my wife was to the comic book convention in NYC at the Penta hotel. I wasn't really into comics then, so I was just tagging along. When I discovered a table with MAD back issues there, I was in heaven. They were hard to come by back then (1991), I had gotten a few old ones from relatives previous to this, but the comic show was a revelation. And yes, they were cheap.

Here's the portrait:

 

I loved the thrill of finding back issues.

 

I'll match your potrzebie and raise you two furshlugginers.