Mad Magazine #3

I’m using Absolutely MAD Magazine - 50+ Years to read and comment on every issue of Mad Magazine published between 1952 and 2005. You can track the progress at this link.

Mad #3 opens with a tremendous cover by Harvey Kurtzman. I love the composition, the character’s isolation, the darkness closing in, the sea of tombstones, the way the umbrella bleeds into the suit and the handle’s a substitute for a handlebar mustache, and I’d buy a stuffed animal that looked like the little vampire boy any day of the week. The issue also features the first appearance of Mad’s letter column, “Mad Mumblings.” Lot’s of praise heaped on issue #1 (“simply delirious”) and a couple of negative comments (“a new low in the comic book industry”).

Kurtzman and Elder’s (credited as “Sergeant Elder”) opening story “Dragged Net!” was my favorite of the issue. Every panel is absolutely packed with visual gags – you get something new every time you read the story. The play between Detective Sergeant Joe Friday and his assistant Ed Saturday is magnificently crafted and, along with the comical twists and turns of the story, is a perfect play on the police dramas of the time. Also, supreme bonus points for referencing Nanook of the North, the 1922 film widely considered the first feature-length documentary.

Next up was the Severin-illustrated “Sheik of Araby!” A hilarious comic that takes on the French Foreign Legion. The sergeant abuses his regiment of foreigners and outlaws that are nowhere near the level of toughness he commands. He throws them over walls, breaks their backs, and breaks rifles over their heads, all the way shouting obscenities at them with his thick French accent. The payoff in the end was a bit of a surprise and well executed.

We go into the two short stories. Honestly, I’m not really enjoying these as much anymore. The Gladiator/Baseball story was pretty funny but I didn’t enjoy the Dandelion Caper all that much. It’s hard – the artwork and humor in the illustrated stories are just too good, if I have to pause to read prose it needs to really grab me. I see myself skipping some of these in the future…

…because skipping them means getting to stories like the Wally Wood illustrated “V-Vampires!” This is a great little tale that takes on the old “she’s obviously a monster, stupid” genre of horror stories. Of course, the twist is that he’s a monster as well. Well played.

And then there’s the Jack Davis-illustrated “Lone Stranger!” A great parody of the “Lone Ranger” that has the Stranger as the bumbling, attention-starved idiot and his sidekick, Pronto, as the guy that needs to take care of business. The gag at the end is hysterical, with the Lone Stranger waiting for the perfect moment to jump on his horse (Golden) and ride off into the sunset. Of course, the Lone Stranger never manages to make the jump onto his horse, causing him to suffer through a sore rump through the majority of the story.

Interestingly, “Dragged Net!” and “Lone Stranger!” seem to be turning towards spoofs of the genre TV shows and not the genre comics that the first two issues relied heavily on. We’re already starting to move towards the conventions of today’s Mad Magazine.

Labels: mad_magazine, review

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