Mad Magazine #5

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.

Starts off with a great Will Elder cover – what else can I say? Moves into a fantastic self-deprecating biography of EC Comics publisher Bill Gaines. It’s another great example of Gaines’ war against the censors and parental groups. In the bio, Gaines describes himself as the “twisted publisher of the perverted E.C. line.” It goes on to describe his younger years where he was a juvenile delinquent – his crimes culminating into a career “selling “cartoon books” (you know the kind!) on dark street corners outside burlesque houses.” It just keeps going on (I’ve posted the whole thing below) and ends with, “Don’t send fan-mail…he can’t read!”

Classic.



The first story is a horror spoof titled “Outer Sanctum” with artwork from Will Elder. Gorgeous artwork, jam-packed with gags, “Tomb It May Concern” etched onto the mausoleum being one of my favorites. The story is Swamp Thing which kind of confuses me because Swamp Thing didn’t appear until 14-years later. The only difference I can tell is that Swamp Thing was made from toxic waste interacting with the vegetation in a swamp and Heap (the monster from the Mad Story) was made from toxic waste interacting with trash in a swamp. It really seems like a perfect lampoon of Swamp Thing – what gives?

EDIT: Ok, I got it – the Mad story seems to be a parody of a character called The Heap developed in the 1940s. Learning something new!

The Wally Wood illustrated “Black and Blue Hawks” is an obvious spoof on the long-running comic featuring the multi-national ace-pilots the Blackhawks. The story was ok, I admit I’m not all that familiar with Blackhawk so a fair amount of the jokes are probably lost on me. I am a fan of supporting character Chop Chop Chop, an Asian pilot that gets screwed-over throughout the story. He comes to his demise for the good of the team, as illustrated below.



“Miltie of the Mounties” is damn-near perfect. Severin knocked it out of the park with the artwork and the story was a fantastic tale of the battle-ready Mounty that always gets his man…unless he turns out to be a woman. Great story, well-executed, and one of my favorite Mad tales so far.



Finally we have Jack Davis lending his pencils to “Kane Keen”, a nice little detective tale. The story was good enough – a private detective that’s always one-step ahead of his enemies and the cops. Desired by every woman he comes across but he always has his eye on the prize and his hand on a bottle of brandy. A nice little Scooby Doo ending wraps this tale up and brings the magazine to a close.

All-in-all a fun issue; the Gaines bio being my favorite part.

Labels: mad_magazine, review

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