Fan Mail


Thanks for your cards and letters as I suffer through keeping a MAD fansite going!


Diane Meglin
Fanmail doesn't get much better than this MAD tribute on #547's letters page!
Eye Candy wrote a nice piece (I think it was nice?!) about the site and The Don Martin Dictionary.
There is an excellent fan website for MAD enthusiasts where you can look up all kinds of stuff, from the regular monthly issue contents to the paperbacks, reprint specials, artist compilations, and on and on. It’s called www.madcoversite.com. You can really get lost in memories there looking around.
"MoldRush" (from Wacky Packages Forum)
I just discovered your website today whilst trying to find the covers of some Mad magazines I got on ebay that sadly had no covers.
Just wanted to say 1.) THANKS for all the work and effort that went into creating it and 2.) WOW -- it's pretty damn amazing!
I'm 50 and have been reading Mad since at least the mid-'70s. Can't wait to delve into your site in earnest.
Jeff
MAD MAGAZINE: Every cover from the first 1952 comic-book edition.
MAD affected our culture in ways we won't discover for another hundred years. A work of art by Doug Gilford.

(from the good folks over at magazineart.org in their links section)
btw, love the Mad Cover Site...A Cyber Bible of Mad for us collectors and fans...It keeps getting better and more informative
Dock (from Twitter)
Doug,
I just recovered my childhood collection of Mad Magazine paperbacks, from my parent's basement. The collection is more than 30 volumes, ranging from 1954-1970. Many of them (but not the earliest) are actual first editions and the collection was already old when I received it as convalescence gift while I was in the hospital in '78. I often joke that everything I know about US mid-20th-century history and pop culture, I learned from the pages of MAD.
Thank you for hosting the Mad Magazine Cover site. It is helping me to learn more about my collection. I am preparing to do a reading at the local public library in two months, although my wife cautions me against the absurdity of using the words "Library Reading" and "Mad magazine" in the same sentence.
Thanks for your site.
Dave
Doug Gilford's Mad Cover Site is the resource that every publication that's been around as long as MAD Magazine deserves.
The incredible index of "Usual Gang of Idiots" contributors is awesome by itself.
Craig (from Metafilter)
Dear Doug
As I slowly acquire more and more classic copies from the '60s / '70s (US originals, not the watered-down UK versions!), your excellent website remains a much-visited source of information and wonder.
All best wishes,
Mark
Hi there, Doug!
Wanna THANK YOU for providing such a wonderfully "MAD" site for the world to enjoy. First discovered and began collecting MAD artwork in March 2011, so wanted to go back and retro-"tip" for each year I've so often enjoyed your research and wonderfully presented web pages. For all that your site has meant to me over the past few years (whether as a social center, entertaining diversion, source for serious collector research, joyful nostalgia, ... and just being made to feel a wee bit more "normal" with so many other folks interested in similar things as me), the very least I could do is help support your efforts however I can. It has gotten me interested in the magazine, its artists, and writers again ... perhaps even more so than when I was a 10-12 year old, snot-nosed kid investing my allowance money for each month's issue. :) Just wanted to give back to you for all of your help, and get in the habit of doing so on-going. Again, THANK YOU for everything!
Scott

Doug,
When Tom Broderidge and I landed the cover of the April 1997 cover (a feat never to be accomplished by us again, mores the pity) we were ecstatic. And after only 18 months of waiting, there it was! On newsstands everywhere! We were immortal! What do you mean the May cover is out? What the...?
Sure, our cover appeared in a MAD collection, but we wanted immortality, remember? Immortality came today. Or, rather, it came as I discovered your site.
What an amazing thing, someone mad enough about MAD to compile all these (12x10x-- did I carry the three?) TONS of masterpieces? Impossible? Not only possible, but brilliantly done. Because of you, and because nothing ever really escapes the internet, we/I shall be IMMORTAL!
Thank you, marvelous man. Thank you.
MAD, you know where I am...
Lisa DuMond
Hey Doug,
What a great site you have created and how important it is. I cannot tell you how helpful it has been for me when searching out various issues of Mad Magazine and their contents. I just wanted to let you know that I realize and appreciate all the detail and effort it took to create such a site and keep it updated. Thank you so much. Although we all like to kind of poke fun at such a thing (because of the subject matter), your site is really an important reference - not only of the many decades that Mad Magazine has been published, but also of the type of humor that was prevalent in each decade. You are in many ways an historian and have done a great job. I, for one, am very grateful that you took the time to accomplish all this.
All the best to you,
Nick
Hi Doug
Just located your MAD covers site, and I simply had to write and say - it's fantastic! I'll be wasting plenty of time here over the next few weeks, but hey! I don't have anything better to do!
I discovered MAD magazine through my older cousin who stored a large box full of early 70s MAD under his bed. (He had a bed wetting problem, despite his advanced age, and so I will always associate the faint smell of urine with MAD. TMI?) What a mind-warping experience this turned out to be! Muppets on Sesame Street talking about birth control?! Starchie, aged and in prison, banging his head up against the cell wall?! Woman Wonder having glass stomped into her face?! I have not been quite the same since. What a mind-(bleep) for a pre-teen! My aunt eventually threw all of my cousin's MAD magazines away. (AARRGGH!!) But I finally forgave her, and even wore an Alfred E. Neuman button to her funeral. Now I collect original copies of MAD magazines/ reprints and other EC material.
One of my favourite, personal MAD memories is purchasing the issue with the free 'Makin' Out' flexi disc. I listened to it in my bedroom endlessly! Unfortunately the disc and magazine are both lost to time. But I do own the CD compilation 'Mad Grooves'. Made the mistake of listening to the CD before bedtime last night, and woke up at 4:30am singing 'Makin' Out'. Couldn't get that rotten tune out of my head for the rest of the night! (Yawn)
My favourite cover is issue #161. For me this sums up the MAD ethos perfectly.
I live in New Zealand, and have been thinking about restaging the famous 1963 posting of a letter to the offices of MAD by John S. Henry featuring only a drawing of Alfred E. on the front of the envelope. (It was sent from Auckland; but I live even further away in Christchurch!) I tried to find the New York office of MAD when I was there a few years ago, but I failed. Guess I'm too stoopid.
God Bless Bill Elder!
Worst,
Jason
Doug,
Just wanted to let you know about a successful reunion that your site just enabled. I found your web site by accident (most people do, I would assume). I'm under the category of "old fart" who had an extensive MAD and Superman collection back when I was growing up in the 50's and early 60's. Of course they disappeared while I was in college in the early 70's (my mother claims they were either removed by an alien mothership or they never existed and I was hallucinating for 15 years-not of course that she either chucked them or gave them away to a cousin). Anyway, you were perfect in your description. For years I remembered a strip in MAD that satirized West Side Story that had JFK, Castro and Khrushchev dancing along near the UN. I couldn't recall what issue it was, or if it was another MAD hallucination. Well, I found your web site, looked it up and low and behold found the issue, #78. So I just concluded the deal to buy his MADs for sale from the early 60's and I'm now not only finally going to revisit that famed memory, but also re-hooked on MAD and will be collecting all of those that were published during the golden New Frontier days of my youth. Thank you for creating this web site. I thought you'd get a kick out of knowing it has reunited an old soul with a memory of youth and made it real again. Guess next I need to start building those Rat Fink cars again….
Best regards,
Mike, Austin TX (native New Yorker)
Doug, greetings from New Yawk ...
...and thanks for the dedication to this great material! The depth and presentation make it easy for MAD fans to keep the madness alive, and for many first-time visitors, reviving the ol' brain cells which had been subjected to these wonderful writings and artwork they had viewed in their earlier years.
Best wishes for continued success,
Michael
Hello, Doug.
Just wanted to let you know that I use your site regularly. I began reading Mad in 1975 at the age of seven with my older brother and have been a fan since. I now have great appreciation and respect for this incredible magazine and its history. I own about 150 issues and continue collecting with the regular help of your site.
Best,
Brad
Greetings from Germany,
I just recently discovered your wonderful site and first of all wanted to say a big "thank you" for this. I already had many hours of fun browsing the covers, and there is still plenty to discover. Great work, much appreciated!
Andreas
You just wasted my whole afternoon and I THANK YOU kindly!!!
VERY COOL site to stumble on Doug! I couldnt just pass by without droppin' a quick line of gratitude. I know it musta taken alotta time to scan all these covers and set it all up! I grew up around the same time as you (1963) so it was great getting taken back in time & I found myself clicking 'em all from beginning to end! I know I still got 20 or 30 isssues from the early 70's around somewhere.
Thanks again for putting up a great site!
a fellow MAD fan,
Mitch
Hi Doug!
I'm a New Zealander living in Asia (Japan 12 years, China 3 years) and I just wanted to let you know what a great site you have! Although it's been a long time since I was home I grew up on Mad Mag and had (had) almost all the issues from the 60's, 70's and up until the mid-80's. Those issues are long gone now sadly (sold, traded..), but if I ever end up back in my home country I fully intend to start collecting again (for bigger bucks, I'm sure!). Anyway, not entirely sure why but the other day I Google-d "Mad Magazine covers" and found your site. Can't tell you how great it is to see those covers again and what memories they bring back! I'm a couple of years younger than you and in New Zealand in the 70's/80's if you were under sixteen (R-16) or eighteen (R-18) you couldn't see R-rated movies at all, even if with a parent, so- this is kinda funny- the closest way I could get to seeing an R-rated movie was reading the Mad Magazine parody, haha (yeah this was even before VHS, or at least before my family could afford to buy one!). When I eventually got to see "Jaws," "Alien," "Eyes of Laura Mars," "Dressed to Kill" etc. I felt I'd already partly experienced them through Mad Mag!
Anyway, great site again and keep up the great work!
Martin
Zhengzhou
China
Hi Doug,
I was looking for past covers of Mad magazine on the internet and came across your site. I just had to email you to tell you how impressive it is. I had never seen some of the back issue covers and did not realize that the magazine was around since the 50's. It's amazing that you have all the covers and I like the way you broke everything down by year and also categories like movies, tv, etc. It makes the site easy to navigate and it is so full of great stuff.
It is obvious that you have put a lot of work into this site and it shows. I have a group of Mad magazines and have always been a fan. I am a movie collector and also like collecting certain magazines too.
Thanks again for the wonderful site. I am really enjoying it!
John
Mr. Gilford,
A friend led me to your site, which is now safely bookmarked among my favorites. I go waaaaaaaay back with Mad, having seen my first issue, a 10c comic, in Atlantic City while on vacation with my parents. I remember my excitement at having discovered something that was not only different from everything else on the stands -- even the comics -- but which parodied other media. I didn't know what parody was at the time, but this certainly woke me up. I haven't read it for years, but the memories of those early issues, up through the 80s, are fresh and welcome.
Thanks for your dedication to a great American resource.
- Neil
Elkins Park, PA

I wonder what your parents thought of Mad on that Atlantic City trip, wonder if they thought it was a little much for a kid?
- Doug


They were typical 50s parents. They probably thought it was a little subversive, even commie, but there was no direct evidence of that in a Basil Wolverton drawing, and it was right there in plain sight, so it must have been legal. They couldn't stop me -- and so I started down the road to ruin for a mere 10 cents.
- Neil
Doug -
What can I say that you haven't already heard - your site is awesome.
Your cover search engine is PERFECT.
I and my nine year old son are in heaven!
And now I finally have all the covers since the 400th issue book came out.
With that, MAD on CD's and your site, I can now die Madly.
Thanks,
Mitch, retired in Sacramento (55)
Doug,
I just want to say you are a "MADMAN"!
Your site is crazy good.
Thanks for spending the time and effort to detail so much info.
Seriously, your site is monumental.
Thanks for such a great job!
Bob
Doug;
Thanks for your outstanding work with your Webpage! I started reading MAD around 1960 (when I stole my first issues from my big brother). I have been a loyal fan ever since. As a child my father found me reading an issue of MAD and expressed his disapproval of "wasting my time on such trash" and actually told me to stop reading it! I asked him if he even knew what it was and suggested that he at least check it out before destroying my life with such an uneducated decision. To my amazement he agreed that it was reasonable to at least look it over. I didn't expect much beyond a slight delay in my execution. I will never forget his reaction. He reversed his opinion and stated that the reader had to be above average intelligence and knowledgeable of current events to understand the humor. He was right! Not only did I have his blessing to enjoy MAD forever, he even bought "us" a few issues when I wasn't able to pick up a copy. He is gone now but I still enjoy reminiscing over our father and son bonding through MAD. Thanks again!
Jeff

I have been a fan of Mad since my grandpa hooked me on it when I was 10. So I started to read it like crazy but when my mom became wise she looked at an issue from the late 90's and flipped out!!!! It stunk even more because I had gotten about 60 Mads from my grandpa. I knew she truly felt bad she couldn't let me read them. They stayed in a box for 2 years and she still let me get them, they just went straight to the box. My grandpa never really knew I couldn't read them so he would keep giving them to me. So when we were at my grandpa's house in the summer of 2006 she took a look at the issue with the Burger King on the cover and she finally broke down and let me read them. I was so anxious to get home to that box that I went crazy! And today I have a great collection of Mads the oldest dating back to 1974. This website was the place I went when I needed to see Mad covers! Thanx Doug.
Tim

I just wanted to say thanks for the MAD cover scans on your website. And not just the scans! You also included the contents of each issue. For several years I've tried to find a particular issue that had "Behind the Scenes at the Post Office." I found it on your website. It's #120 from July 1968. I'm in my 23rd year working for the Post Office. Of course, it's now the Postal Service. In 1959 I began reading my brothers MAD magazines. I was a regular reader up until about 1968. After that I read it occasionally until around 1971. I still have many of those old issues. I want to see if I still have #120. From what I remember, MAD's depiction wasn't too far fetched.
Hal

Doug,
Yes, there are people out here that greatly appreciate your efforts.
Mad enthusiast since 1957.
Damn! I should be dead by now!
Art

I got into MAD at an early age (I was 8, see enclosed pic), it was the 80s, and well, it was good reading..... my Dad told me about the magazine, and I decided to pick up an issue and see what the fuss was about.... my first issue was #287, and I was hooked, I would read back issues at my local library, and buy any issue I could get my hands on...... When I was 11 or so, I lucked into a HUGE collection of back issues from the 70s, and I managed to grab a copy of the issue dated the month I was born (January 1980).... I was a big fan, and treated my collection with reverence and respect...... unfortunately, EVERY SINGLE ISSUE was destroyed in a basement flood, that claimed my comic collection as well..... Last week, I came across a copy of Dick DeBartolo's Memoir "Good Days and Mad" and after reading it, my love for the magazine was rekindled...... I want to replace all the issues I lost, and your site has given me the first step to doing so......identifying each issue I owned.... I owned a lot of the Specials as well, and hope eventually, you'll be able to include those (As well as the paperback books, as I had a few of them) as well......keep up the good work!
Justin

All I can say is 'thank you' for this obvious labor of love. MAD has always been a part of our lives, and always will be. This is a beautiful, well-researched, easily accessible website, and a lesson of web site construction for all of us. Somewhere Bill Gaines is smiling... You do him (and Alfred, and all of those brilliant Mad artists) proud!
Vince
Hi Doug:
I really enjoyed perusing through your site today and learned quite a bit about not only the value of my Mads, but about the value of some of the very rare (original) first issues. Thank you so much for taking the time to educate the public and for offering a free listing service for people like me...
Warm Regards,
Stewart
What a great site!
I used to read my big brothers' Mad Magazines in the late 1960s and 70s. Well, I'm 40 years old now and I still remember a lot of the spoofs and parodies from these treasures. Thanks for bringing back a lot of great memories... your site does a great public services for those of us who are a little twisted!!
Marcia
Hello Doug:

Please, I´d really like to be included in the Fan Letter space because I can´t be excluded from such idiotic community who loves such a idiotic pastime as it is...MAD!

I´d appreciate very much that you could tell me about a classic movie satire appeared on Issue #26, "The Seven Itchy Years" because at least in every issue and Super Special that I´ve read, never, but never saw any single Marylin Monroe caricature. It was only by the time I discovered your website that could learn what was on the very first issues... I was born in the 70´s. Well, what I just want to know, is who wrote and who drew that satire.

Thank you, and God may Potrzebless everyone!

Arnaldo

P.S. Excuse my english, I´m from Mexico.


I can tell you that Will Elder was responsible for the artwork and Harvey Kurtzman for that story from issue #26.
this has been one of my favourite comics in years,my first"Mad Mags"were bought for me in the early sixties,by my dad,when he was in the Royal Navy,when he travelled to New York,America,that's when he sailed from England,to this day i still have them,all in mint condition,as my collection of Superman,Superboy,Detective,Batman,Lois Lane,Jimmy Olsen,Green Lantern,Flash,JLA,Teen Titans,and my Giant 80 page mags,i've collected all these from the late 50's up to the 1976/77,again these are all mint condition....But im so glad to be able to see all/some of the Mad comics that i have got over the years,i've now saved the site to my favourites,my wife has collected afew Mad Mags over the years,we have safely under wraps...Our three grown up teenage kids,the oldest hes nearly twenty,and the girls are fifteen and eighteen,cant work out what we're talking about sometimes,when we mention Spy vs Spy, i suppose if it was Usher,Sean Paul,50 cent,they'ed be well into that,but they dont share our same wit...I'll be half a century in January,so keep the covers comming in,as i hav'nt seen a Mad Mag here in ages,yours Chris,Lewisham.London England...
Thank you for taking the time to create such an exceptional fan site. You mentioned the benefit of receiving motivational feedback, so please consider this note as such! I have loved MAD Magazine ever since I first saw it as a kid. I found my first issue in 1977 at a 7-11 in Galveston, Texas. I was seven-years-old... sunburned and wide-eyed at having found such a bizarre and brilliant gem. Throughout my youth, I coveted every issue of MAD ever purchased, found, purloined or borrowed. I think that those years of reading MAD stretched into a demented Road to Damascus that I meandered along as a kid. My handful of issues from the 70s & early 80s have long-since gone the way of suburban garage sales and one, semi-catastrophic fire at my folk's place. Today, I find myself working in media for a cable news network. Humor in a topical vein? I write and produce promos. MADness indeed. I'd like to think that MAD played some kind of strange, seminal role in my honing in on a career path that involved playing with words and pictures. I never became a serious collector of MAD, or anything else for that matter, but as I gazed at your site (for hours) this morning, I thought that I could see myself enjoying the hunt for these precious relics. Perhaps, I'll be in touch again.
Kudos!
Devin
CNN On-Air Promotion
Hi,
I was just cruising the internet looking for information about issue number 61 and I came upon this site so clear. I am truly impressed by the professional design and friendly nature of your contribution to the fans of MAD magazine. I will be back to spend more time.
Thanks
Ted, retired school teacher and volunteer fire putter outer.

Doug,
I am so impressed with your website. Of course it's interesting and helpful. I've collected Mad for 40 years starting at 10 years old. I still find them funny. I own 165 issues with #39 being my oldest. My peak issues are 86-158 in a row. When I started to work full time I stopped buying them regularly. But I'm still searching for pre #39 and some fill ins to my collection. Thank you so for putting in the time on this wonderful site just for me. Didn't we all get caught with an issue inside a large school book at school? There's no mention on your site of their great music on discs, either supplied in their annuals or on LP format. I own "Mad Twists Rock'n'Roll" on the Big Top label #12-1305. The parody that caught my ear was 'She Got A Nose Job"*. What a song.
Dave

*She got a nose job
She got a nose job
It's now turned up instead of hanging down
She got a nose job
She got a nose job
And now she the prettiest gal in town

She never had no one
To call her own
Her future looked mighty bleak
But now she's on
Everyone's list
Since she overhauled her beak
Greetings Doug,
I own the most complete Mad collection in the most isolated place in the world, Hawaii. So if the whole world goes Kaplooey, hopefully there won't be any repurcussions felt here and the world will still have an intact full run of the best humor mag. Of course as soon as ebay gets up and running I will be the first to sell at a premium, oh yeah! I've been at it for 32 years and this madness won't go away. Nice to see that I'm not the only one! Cool site, keep up the good work!
LATER DAVE... MAD in HAWAII!!!!!

Wow, they get Mad in Hawaii?! -- Doug
Hi,
I thought your website was extremely cool and never in my life have I read so many things all about MAD!! I haven't been collecting MAD that long because I'm actually only a 12 year old girl. This might be a surprise to you I know, but hey, I love MAD just as much as anyone else right? Well I found your site to be really helpful to my knowledge about MAD. Even my Dad used to read it when he was a kid and he still enjoys reading the ones I buy today. Thanks for making a really really awesome web site dude!!!
Sincerely,
a GIRL who reads MAD


I'm going to believe you're a 12-year-old girl this time and not one of those 47-year-old men posing as a 12-year-old girl to get a letter printed! -- Doug
Hi,
I stumbled across your site. Top notch stuff. I was born in 1962 so we are around the same age. In 1974 a friend of mine gave me his brother's Mad collection starting with issue 92. I kept it going until I went away to college in 1980. I got divorced a few years ago and the collection sits in my ex-wife's attic!! I'm not allowed access to it or to my collection of Baseball and Hockey cards that date back to the 1950's. Anyway, your site brought back a lot of great memories. Thank you.
Edward


Tragic beyond words. Thanks for writing -- Doug
Hi Doug,
I have been a reader/collector since 1973. My collection goes to issue #25. Had a chance last year to buy issue 24 for 175 bucks at the San Diego Comic Con, but I was upon hard times and dead broke...... I nearly ripped it off. I wanted it that bad. The convention is coming up again and this time I hope it is there again. From time to time, I get out my collection and reflect upon my own life, successes and failures, MAD is such a great timeline to use. My favorite covers --- a tie between the 1974 issue with Nixon/Agnew on the cover and of course the middle finger cover. I am taking my collection to the grave. I had a letter published in the January 1974 issue, I still get teary-eyed looking at it. It is a shame that declining readership made them turn for the worse-- ADS. I had a terrible feeling when I picked up that 1st AD issue, it is not right. MAD never stood for that. But I keep buying, it keeps me honest. I feel good when I read that readership reached an all time high when I was a teenager, I was a part of that wave. I just want to know how so many people walked away from it, MAD is one of the most important periodicals of these times, you know that. That's why you have your site here, you feel that way too. Thanks for this, I just want to be heard, just like you. Long live MAD.....
Respectfully, Mike
Gotta say, hands down, best site ever!
You don't know how long I've searched for the extensive Mad cover collection site! You've met all my Mad needs!
-joey
Excellent webpage. Very nice work. Mad Mag from the 50's and 60's was one of my major influences growing up. It's a classic. Don't have a huge collection. Actually the missed purchase I still regret the most is a Mad one. I was at a swap meet in Phoenix, in about 1969 (10 yrs old). Someone had a stack of Mads that represented a good 10-12 years worth for a dime a piece, but the guy said 'give you the whole stack for $5'. Unfortunetely that was a fortune for me at the time, so I just picked out a couple of issues and gave him my dimes!! Oh well.
Brian
Mad #34 I encountered MAD about 1957, with issue 34 or thereabouts, and David Berg's barbecue article. It is customary among MAD people to claim that MAD used to be better in the old days, et. al., and even MAD has made fun of this. All the same, I think the l950s and 1960s were still the best. MAD is so short of ideas now, they even put bathroom and barf jokes on the cover. Once when in NYC I went to 225 Lafayette, 7th floor, 706, and found some excuse to knock on the door of MAD's old address for its first decade. So small! Where did they find office space for them all? Even the whole 7th floor didn't look very large.I then took the tiny elevator down to the tiny lobby, and left through the old glass doors, thinking that decades before, Wood, Davis and all had done the same.
chester
Mad #62 When I was a kid in the late 70's through the 80's I loved MAD. I remember I bought issue #62 at a flea market and kept it up and in good shape, then I just lost interest one day. I found it the other day with the cover ripped off and in terrible shape. I hadn't bought an issue in years 'till I happened upon your site. I became obsessed instantly and went out and bought the newest issue (#420). I just started bidding on some issues on e-bay. I think this could be a cool hobby.
Thanks and no thanks. I mean thanks for reminding me how much I love the magazine, and no thanks for the money I'm about to spend.
Wade
Hello Doug,
I absolutely love your site by the way! I wish I had known about it a long time ago. It's been a big, fun trip down memory lane. I grew up reading mad, always had a special kind of hate for Cracked, and eventually even subscribed to Groo. Anyway, I just wanted to say I appreciate all the work you've put into your site. Keep up the good work.
Chris
Tom Richmond Doug,
I visited your site recently. After the nausea passed I greatly enjoyed all the terrific cover images, the content and humor throughout. Truly a monumental achievement in time-wasting... much like reading MAD itself! I knew eventually there would be a good reason for this internet thing, and while this isn't it, it's fun nonetheless!
All kidding aside, great job on a terrific site!! I'm sure you'll keep up the good work, at least until you find a job. Until then, I'll be visiting often!
MADly,
Tom
-------------
Tom Richmond
Richmond Illustration Inc.
http://www.tomrichmond.com
tom@tomrichmond.com

Hey Mr. G--
I was glad to discover your site a while back, but even gladder to visit it a couple of months ago. I actually used the thing to help research #400's "Untold History of MAD Magazine"..... for getting dates straight, matching up a couple of facts, recurring premises, etc. Yes, you were an unwitting midwife in the birth of that travesty (as if the shame of maintaining a MAD website weren't ENOUGH for you to bear).
Anyway, keep up the bad work!
--Desmond Devlin
Mad #65 HI Doug,
Just had to write & congratulate you on an excellent website. It has so much info I thought I would never find. Back in the early seventies I found a copy of Mad which I guess my dad was given by his American friend. It was in a cupboard with old photos & stuff. It was issue #16 U.K. with the Acropolis on the front U.S. edition #65. I must have read that issue 50 times, and although I grew up to be a Mort Drucker fan I will always remember Dave Berg's "The Beach" which at the tender age of 8 was fantastic. I started buying Mad at #171 when I saw it at the corner shop, this continued thru to #250 when I got tired of the british artists & their humour taking over the mag. I kept every issue including #16, with many from 190-250 in mint condition still. Now I am buying a few old issues at Ebay. I think it's a part of childhood that will catch up with us all in adult life because of the humour.
Thanks, you're in my Faves.
Mark
Suffolk, U.K.
If you have all of these issues, be very proud. My collection begins with #28, I think. I need to check what I've bagged in plastic. I would have started with earler issues but my parents wouldn't let me buy any of them. They thought the magazine was evil, wicked, mean, bad and nasty. It would warp my sense of values and turn me into a mindless psychopath. I must take exception to that, outside of a few quirks as the Zodiac Killer, Hillside Strangler and Night Stalker, giving Ted Bundy and Jeff Dalmer lessions in starting their own hobby, and being a Zombie a while ago, I don't think Mad Magazine has effected me in the least. Then to, other people would point out my schizophrenia days, but then again we're ok now. I'll have to see about trying to pick up the issues I do not have. Again, great site.
Neil
Well Doug,
I know what it's like to have to have every issue. I bought every issue that I met from New York to California. Unfortunately, now I'm looking for someone to buy all my issues, but I can't let them go. I'm so attached to them because, like yourself, I was 10 when Crockwork Lemon was purchased for me at the magazine shop up the street and from that day on I HAD TO HAVE EVERYTHING ALFRED E. NEUMAN. Then came the day in 1974 when I saw it: THE FIRST MAGAZINE ISSUE OF MAD. I begged and held my breathe until MOM came up with the $40.00, which was a lot of money for a widow mother with three little brats. But I must say I love her to this day for that moment when the first magazine issue WAS MINE. So thanks for letting me share my Mad story with you. WE do have to stick together and I enjoyed your site.
Curvez
I am one of the biggest fans of MAD. I'm only 12 so I don't have too much MAD stuff. I can't stress how much your website is helping me get some MADs at a good price. I have money, but I'm not allowed to spend too much. I want MAD #1 magazine (the one worth hundreds). I got an offer for $125, but couldn't get it. Oh well. I'm getting some other good deals for more magazines at almost the same price. I've actually shared emails with some of the greats and got stuff like Duck Edwing's autograph, drawn pictures, his pin, Pete Kuper's autograph and postcard. I met John Ficarra and Sam Viviano in the New York City headquarters (got autographs and personal picture from Sam) and I'm expecting an autograph from Will Elder in the mail. They are very nice. I visit your site all the time. Thanks for some great no-good entertainment! I hope to eventually get every MAD like you. We'll see. I'll email you to tell you how it's going (should be getting about 70 issues soon). Thanks again...
Jonathan
This is a 17-year-old fan of Mad who grew up on my grandparents' 1960s and 70s Mads over the years and had a subscription from 1994-2000. I saw your site and I felt I really needed to let you know how much your "Mad Movie Satires" list really made my day. All those years of searching countless Mads trying to figure out where the Psycho II spoof is and what the spoof title was titled are over. Gone are the days of trying to guess what the spoof title was called to a movie while searching under the Mad CDs. Do you know how long I've been waiting for a list like this to come along? A VERY long time. This frustrated my Dad, too, when trying to find the "Where Eagles Dare" spoof and finally gave up until I saw your list. You'd think MAD would've released a list of the satires considering how hard it is trying to find satires thumbing through old pages. Guess not. You've raised a significant burden from my Mad shoulder and I just needed to thank you.
A fan,
Mark
Doug,
Just wanted to tell you that I think your site is awesome. Nice job! I had thought about scanning all my issues and doing somewhat the same thing but it is nice to see that someone has gone to all that trouble. I have been collecting Mad since the 50's and am fortunate to have every issue ever printed. The hard part is to keep them in pristine condition through all those intervening years, which I have managed to do. I dislike the idea of pawing through the old magazines which causes the inevitable decline in their condition through time, but with your site and others I can pore over those back issues...sort of like 'having your cake and eating it too'. Good luck and thanks!
John
Doug, thanks for being an idiot. However much money, time, and toil was put into inventing the Internet by Alfred E. GaBore was made worthwhile by your foolishness. Thanks for doing what I haven't the time nor the inclination to do.
Troy E. K
p.s. not a question in your survey, but I think Mad stumbled when it freed Willy (rest however he darn well pleases)
p.s.s long live plankton
Hi Doug:
What an amazing site! I was trolling around the Internet for Don Martin information (tragically little, as you probably know) and hit the motherlode with you. Never picked up on the Chevy Chase MI thing (and who would? It was five years before SNL!) and enjoyed looking at a lot of covers. I just went through my moving boxes and lost some issues in transit (well, maybe they're in a box SOMEWHERE!) so your site was very helpful to confirm that YES, I did own them once...
I've got quite a pile myself and would have had more - lost three years worth as a child when a nun told my mom that "Mad magazine is obscene!" - but I still buy every ish and now my daughter has a subscription. Ironically I have NEVER had a subscription, as I didn't want the copies to get ruined by weather and bad mailmen.
Anyway, just wanted to share the moment...thanks for all that work, it's a true treasure!
Regards,
bill
Let me say that stumbling across your site triggered a flood of childhood memories (arrrrrrrgh! the shock treatment!!). Seeing the covers of Mad magazine from around 1971-1975 reminds me of HOURS spent reading material that literally warped my psyche like nothing ever could!
*slug*
Mad #180 When I was six years old and living in Memphis I saw a sacker at the local grocery store pick a Mad magazine off the rack and flip through it. Being a little kid and thinking that everything a teenager does is cool, I checked it out. And after 21 years I still remember that it had Alfred inside the shark mouth's from JAWS. I don't know why I remembered it all these years...maybe it scared me...but what a cool feeling to stumble across your site, find that cover in the thumbnail section, and compare what I had remembered since then to what it really looked like. It's cool to be able to fill in little bits of memories like that. Sentimental folks like me live for that kind of thing.
I don't know how long it took you to scan in all those covers, but your site just made my week. Fantastic, man!
Thanks,
Rob
I HAVE SO THOROUGHLY ENJOYED ALL THE MATERIAL, IMAGES, AND INGENUITY OF YOUR SITE--ITS SENSE OF HUMOR AND WONDER! I AM A SPECIALIST IN 19TH CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHY AND FRENCH IMPRESSIONISM, PUBLISHED BY ABRAMS. MY AFTERNOON SPENT HERE HAS BEEN AMONG THE MOST PLEASANT I CAN REMEMBER FOR SOME TIME.
THANK YOU.
R. GORDON
I am writing from Sao Paulo - Brazil just to congratulate you for the excellent "MAD" site you developed. I have been a great MAD reader myself, but for quite a while I had forgotten the magazine. By pure chance I thought of the great Bill Elder and was browsing the net in order to find some info of him, and some links led me to your work. Here in Brazil the magazine has stopped circulating for over a decade I guess. Anyhow, I still keep my collection of Brazilian and American issues in very good condition, keeping the treasure for future generations...
All the best,
Alexandre Zogbi
Just a quick line to tell u how awesome your site is. I've been reading mad for about 17 years now and it's great to see all the pre-100th editions. Keep up the great work; this is one site I'll keep coming back to.
Woodman Melbourne,Australia
I just came across your Mad cover site while looking for some fresh wallpaper for the reference desk computer here at University of Michigan-Flint. What a delightful site! Looking through the covers really brought back memories of my wasted youth. One of the great trivial (or trivial great) losses of my life was a near-mint condition 4-year run of Mad, 1959-1962, that I had stored in an old desk in my room. I came home from my first semester at college in 1965, and found all the Mads gone! My mother, who meant well, had cleaned out my room--and had tossed out the Mads, because she knew I had "outgrown" them, and wouldn't want them any more. It makes me sick every time I think of it. Makes me even sicker when I see what those issues are going for on the collector market! Oy! Oh, well: At least I can look at the covers on your site--even if that is a pale substitute for holding the real thing in my hands. Anyhow, great site; I'll be looking in again. Thanks. --gb
Doug-boy,
A fantastic site! To keep a site of this magnitude up and running, well...to be kind, this must BE your life. And whatta life! I am deeply jealous. I collect and read and laugh and even aspire to write for MAD (4 rejections so far). Your site (along with Dick's) are the very best.
One quick question: Is this the same cover site that the MAD lawyers shut down a few years ago? Or is the gag order still in effect? Because I frequented a site years ago that had the same attention to detail as this one.
Steve

Steve,
Thanks for writing. Yes, this is the same site. Mad lawyers had some major problems with the sight early on because there were some obvious copyright issues. If you examine the law (or interpret it as I've done) you see that I'm no threat to Mad's health and they must realize it too, because I have not received any warnings in many years. There is that unstated possibility that they could and probably have every right to get nasty and sue my pants off. So the site always hangs by a thin thread.
Doug
Your Mad site is terrific. Many of the baby boomers' memories parallel my own. I first met Mad (the comic book) in 1954. We lived next door to a 14-year-old kid who seemed very grown up to me (I was 5). He had a great collection of comics, including the 3-D variety, and Mad. I would go over there all the time to get a headache reading those 3-D comics, but I especially liked reading Mad. With those dark drawings of the trio I would later know as Elder, Wood, and Davis.
I actually learned to read looking at these magazines because I so wanted to comprehend them (if that was possible). Later, when it became a magazine, I too, would be the first kid on my block to run down to the supermarket and pester the manager to cut the baling wire on the new stacks of Mads so I could have mine first.
Mad #32 At that time, I actually thought Norman Mingo's name was a put-on of cover artist Norman Rockwell. I used to think the name "Mingo" was especially clever and funny. Of his covers, I liked Issue #32 the best...the sense of "discovery" as the British archeologists look upon Alfred E. Neuman's hieroglyph as they open an Egyptian tomb. Pure illustrative Genius!
These covers, and the articles inside the magazine, especially those dealing with Madison Ave., had a profound effect upon me. From the age of 5, I wanted to be an ad man! This was the 50's, the Golden Age of TV, when all those ridiculous commercials were actually on the air, and just as ridulous ad campaigns were appearing in print. If those boobs made a living writing this drivel, why couldn't I! Looking back on these issues {24 through 74) makes me realize just how fresh and sophisticated they still remain. In light of the real low-life drivel that passes for entertainment today, they are a revelation, never to be duplicated (where are the Wallace Woods of today?).
I bailed-out of buying Mad after the Alfred of Arabia Issue. By then, the magazine had become too pat and predictable. Every movie parody, every Spy vs Spy, every "Lighter Side Of..." had become too boring for me. The edginess was gone. And they stopped using their cool masthead! Needless to say, I became an ad man, an advertising art director/creative director for a MadAv agency. Still am. And I owe it all to Mad. Funny how I could read and re-read them and understand them at the age of eight. My eight- year-old son today won't even pick them up. What kind of a furshlugginer deal is that?
Mark
Just a note to let you know that your site is terrific. I've been reading MAD for about 40 years, and seeing all the covers again is a real treat. As I've told friends, because of my long affinity for MAD, my humor was sophomoric long before I got to high school. Thanks very much for your efforts. You've brought me a lot of nice memories.
B. Nelson
Thanks for writing. I'm glad the site brought back some memories.
Was there a particular cover or article you liked best?
Doug
Mad #46 MAD #46 has always been a favorite. It was the April Fool's 1959 issue. I was just shy of 10 years old, in a Woolworth's in Fitchburg, Massachusetts with my Mother, and I picked it up.
It showed Alfie hanging over a fence crying, and the words: "This Is the End of MAD" on the cover. I opened it up and realized that the cover had been purposely put on backwards, so I was indeed looking at the end (last page) of that issue.
Understanding the joke made me feel quite proud, and it gave me an angle. I showed it to my Mom, and said "Mom, can I please buy this? After all, it's the last issue!!" The ruse worked. I proudly brought my first issue of MAD home with me.
My name is Eric Perlin. You asked for people to let you know if they like your site, so I'm letting you know: I like your site.
Thank you very much. Coming from a true member of the "usual gang of idiots" I consider that a supreme compliment.
My only complaint about Mad is that it no longer features Don Martin. While everything else in the magazine is as good as ever, I don't think anyone can ever fill Don Martin's shoes.
Don Martin was probably THE reason I became a fanatic and I was sad to see him go.
Mad #357 I am a long time fan of Mad Magazine, and a two-time writer. Look for my contributions in issue #357 and the upcoming #372.
Your article in #357 is classic Mad. Their finest stuff in my opinion involves dissecting other media and exposing it for what it truly is like you've done here. I like the cut-down version of O.J.'s book best.
Thanks again for writing.
Doug Gilford

A wonderful sight...er, site. Well, I suppose either and/or both are correct. Nice to see that the "Usual Gang of Idiots" and their handlers are so cooperative in your effort. MAD's about all we've got left, given the present state of reality, and it's great to see all the old covers along with hangnail sketches of each mag's contents. Keep up the good work(?).
Randall
Hey, you have a really cool site. I am on it a lot. I'm not just a person who sends e-mail every time I come across a good site, I rarely reply, but I have hunted for months for a good MAD site and yours is awesome. I know you have spent many hours on it. I hope you keep up the good work.
Chris
Mad #61 Your Mad covers bring back amazing memories of my youth when my Mother had some nebulous reasons for me not to read the magazine, which I did anyway.
I was always fascinated with the 1961 upside down cover & am surprised that my memory of it being the January issue was incorrect.
How many other false memories do I have I wonder?
D.A.S.
This site is great! I've always loved the old EC comic book Mads the best. I'm a professional animator and my colleagues and I were all influenced by Kurtzman, Wood, Elder, etc. It's great to see these covers. Keep it up! I'm going to forward this site to all my animator friends.
Charles Keagle
great site!
i read mad a lot. my dad says he recognizes all the old covers from when it was a comic book. he says he hopes you some day have scans of art by the great artists of mad, such as Wallace Wood, Will Elder, Basil Wolverton and Jack Davis. keep up the good work.
MDelizia
Mad #154 Great site! I was thinking about selling some of my mags from the early 70's, but every time I look at them, I don't think I could part with them (YECCH!). I remember buying #154 (the corn on the cob cover) on the way to a Packer game with my family. I showed them the cover and had the whole car laughing. I think MAD definitely warped my sense of humor permanently. I don't know if that's a good thing.
Keep up the good work
Jeff




Mad #143 Doug,
What can I say but.....thanks for the memories. Your site vindicates all those strange years growing up as a kid when the one thing I always looked forward to was going down to the little neighborhood store to get my latest issue of MAD. It always proved, according to my late father, that I had no literary taste whatsoever, even though I would catch him on occasion laughing almost to tears as he paged through a few of them.
Jeeze......even when I was in Vietnam my best friend back home would send me MAD each month to make sure I didn't miss one decadent issue. Would you believe I had one issue(think it was June/71) with a shrapnel hole in it that I kept as a good luck charm?
I spent at least 3 hours picking through your site on my first visit. I have to say my man.....you are almost as much of a legend as MAD for putting all this on the Web for all the old baby boomer bohemian road warriors like me to reminisce. It may even prove to some your younger visitors that yes, not only was our music back then good but our reading material also left nothing to be desired. Thanks for all the hard work and the slice of true Americana.
Thomas Rene
I feel your pain! I just want you to know that I will always support MADD and all their efforts!! As long as one drunken bastard out there cruises the highways of America, I shall stand for....heh. Wait a minute! Who's this goofy lookin' dude? And what's all this weird yet strangely compelling reatoric? Hey! It's all coming back to me now! It's Mad Magazine!! HaHa!!! All those years that my mother worked 3 jobs to finance my psychiatric treatment to permenantly forget my obsession with Mad are for naught!!! HaHa!!! Keep up the goon work! There are still some of us out here who have had the good fortune to have grown up with the bastard child of William Gaines (my only hero). Fight the good fight buddy. As long as Paul Rodriquez is around and Pee Wee Herman has stopped making movies, American humor is in trouble. Your site has renewed my faith. I'm going to celebrate by getting drunk and cruising around town....
Dwayne
Mad #22 Mad #21 Hey Doug...
I just checked out your site... wow, you have a ton of early cover scans. Do you actually own all those books? Impressive collection if so. I guess you don't need my scan of iss.22 :) By the way, did you know that #21 is the first appearance of A.E. Neuman? He's in one of the ads on the cover. I saw it once in a Toronto comic shop... the same place (and day actually) where I bought #22. Did you read the comics code thing? The code that resulted in Mad switching to magazine form? It's a pretty bizzare document. Anyway, later, Dave
I have been on the web about three weeks and yours is certainly the best site I've yet seen. I have copied all the covers to date and expect to set a different cover as my wallpaper for the next year.
Unfortunately, thirty years after publication, some are still too controversial (offensive?) to go on my office computer. Thanks for the site.
dennis_turnbull
Mad #89 I have enjoyed looking at your web site. I discovered Mad in 1964, when I was 8 years old, starting with issue number 89, which I bought for a quarter, half of my weekly allowance. I was a fanatical reader for the next ten years, when I left home for college.
Two years ago my mother passed away, and we had to clean out the house to sell it. Deep in my closet was a old cardboard box, filled with all my old Mad Magazines. I took them home.

Last year I turned 40, and got the mad bug. When I was a kid, I always wanted all the issues prior to no. 89. After a few months, and several thousand dollars, I now have a complete collection from issue no. 1 - 200.
Daphne Reileys

Thank you thank you thank you. I haven't seen some of these covers since my second ex-wife dumped my own collection of all the comic issues since the first. Keep working on this site and I'll be back.
BHolman
Doug:
Thanks for the little piece of Americana. I loved those things growing up, and am glad someone had the good sense to save them in a format that modern folks could appreciate. Thanks again.
Russ
Hey, keep up the good work. It's nice to have my Mad mania vindicated by seeing it on the web. (Just don't tell Mumsy-Wumsy, or she'll make me throw out all my back issues!)
Truly, Madly, Deeply
Dienstag
I think your site is monumentally great. I didn't think anyone else cared about MAD anymore, as I do. Much success!
JohnTeGrote
This site brings back some old memories, keep up the great work. I look forward to checking back often and will tell all I know. C'ya
Kent
Great site! Keep up the scanning, as great as the old covers are, the new one's are even better! It just proves that even something as bad as Mad can get even worse, and all for our benefit! I'll be checking back periodically!
jason scavio

Mad #33 Thank you so much for this site. I entered high school in 1957 and soon discovered Mad. I remember my English teacher saying to me "But Bill, you have so much potential, why waste your time on such trash." Ah, but what wonderful trash.
One day, I was thrown out of homeroom for laughing too loudly while reading Mad. I remember that I was reading a parody of an A&P food store ad and when I hit "Stewed Prunes, 25 cents; Sober Prunes, 50 cents" I lost it.
My parents threw out my collection sometime in the late 60's when my Mad reading had, as they had feared, led to the harder stuff, Zap and Harold Head. Now in my fifties, I want to find that issue.
I will always be grateful to Alfred E. Newman for getting me thrown out of homeroom because it made me realize that exiting the normal did not lead to disaster, but rather to opportunity. I now work as a pollution prevention consultant to large chemcial companies helping them to reduce their impact on the environment. To be successful, I have to constantly question conventional wisdom. Thanks to the bracing influence of Mad, it is second nature to me.
Until I found your site I had no way to determine which issue had that A&P ad. I'm still not sure, but I think it is number 33. Thank you again for the effort you have put into this wonderful site.
Bill Bilkovich
Geez what a great site! My brothers and I had a framed 8x10 pic of Alfred hanging on our bedroom wall. My oldest brother (whom by the way is 13 years older) still say's "What Me Worry". The two things I remember most are the folding back covers and the spy vs spy series! Lots of fond memories reading that rag. There are 6 of us and believe me it was well read by the time the next issue came out. Keep up the great job!!! The web site is beautifully done. The wallpaper is great I'd like some like it for my bathroom!
Thanx, joe
Thank you for the cover graphics. They will be a cherished part of my JPEG collection. MAD was an early influence on my life, like so many others my parents did not want me reading it. So I did. We spent countless hours copying drawings during class and consequently wound up with no class upon graduation. I've since lost many of the books and mags, but have a small collection still. Your site sure brings back some great times being a schmuck in school. I wouldn't be the twisted rude humor freak I am today without it. Many thanks for a proper upbringing and mindsprining into the MAD world we must all learn to survive in, the primer has done it's job!
frankC4
I live in Australia, and first started reading MAD Magazine about 24 years ago! In those days it was a rather expensive mag imported from the USA. Some time later they started publishing it in Oz, using the US material as well as some local. I searched 'MAD MAGAZINE' tonight and happened upon your site. What a showstopper!!!! Possibly one of the best sites I've ever seen. I don't know maybe I just don't get around that much??!! Congrats, and I cant believe the boyz over at MAD haven't begged you to do their official site.
Carol from Sydney
Just a small thank you for the wonderful job you did in putting this collection of MAD together. It was wonderful going down memory lane to such epic episodes as Bonanza aka Bananaz and Branded aka BrandXed and of course Burke`s Law aka Bucks Law. The list is endless as is your collection. Though I wish there was a way to actually have and read these great past issues. It was enough just to know that their are other fans of MAD out their, other than myself, willing to go through the hard work just to put this collection together on software. What a terrific job. Thanks again for the trip down memory lane.
Signed two grateful MAD fans,
CP&BP
Happened upon your site while looking for a .jpeg of Alfred to prove my contention that Geedubya Bush smiles like him... and it all came flooding back, those years right before puberty (1962-5) when the high point of my month was the new MAD... Don Martin (who recently died, RIP), Spy vs. Spy, Dave Berg, the drawings in the margin, MAD stickers (the dentist is IN...somebody's mouth), and best of all, the MOVIE PARODIES. Pushing fifty, I can barely remember what happened yesterday, but I can still see the drawings in classics like 'For the Birds' (recently Tippi Hedren made a personal appearance at the Stanford Theater and I realized I still think of her as Tipsy Headrinse), "Hood", 'Flawrence of Arabia'. In my 20s when I tried to read 'The Group' by Mary McCarthy, I could NOT stop thinking of the cartoons of all the characters in "The Bunch", especially Candy Bergen as Lakey the Dyke wearing that bowler hat. And although it's not on your list I could swear they did a parody of 'South Pacific' at some point, because I can still remember their version of 'cock-eyed optimist', titled 'nuclear physicist'--"when the sky turns a bright atomic yellow..."
In regards to South Pacific, I haven't included it in my movie or TV lists because it was a Broadway musical. It was made into a movie, but Mad didn't make fun of the movie. They chose to make fun of the stage musical by doing their own version called South Chicago in issue #71, June 1962. The "cock-eyed optimist" comes from a songbook bonus in the fourth annual edition More Trash From Mad which came out in 1961.

I remember some of the TV parodies vividly too, like 'Dr. Kiljoy' (did I only imagine they did one on Ben Casey too, called 'Ben Crazy', with a hairy chested, beetle browed Vince Edwards?)
There were some references to Edwards and the show, but Mad never did a featured parody. They looked inside Edwards' wallet in issue #74, October 1962. In issue #83, December 1963, Mad looked at "stupidity" on television and featured a sample of Ben Casey but didn't do a traditional satire feature of the show.

At one point I had two or three years worth of the mag... till my Mom made me get rid of them (along with my Mickey Mouse magazines and watch). It would have been much easier to sell one of my cousins into white slavery than part with those issues... She also tried to make me get rid of my original Barbie doll, haha, the one who's now worth ten grand, but I held out on that one. Even if I had the MADS I wouldn't sell them, any more than I've sold Barbie (even when I was flat broke and sold my Mother's diamond and my own cemetery plot). Last year I went to Lancaster PA and bought her an Amish outfit and she's in a glassed in case in my living room. (My next project is to buy or have made for her a female dominatrix outfit...it's time she came into the 21st century and whipped that wussy Ken into shape.)
Are you talking about Barbie or your Mom encased in glass in your living room?

Rarely have I had a close friend who didn't turn out to have been a fan of MAD in their youth. I can always tell when I use the term 'veeblefetzer' or 'potrzebie' and someone's eyes light up that I have found a kindred soul.
Hope you like at least one of my suggested movie titles. I admit 'Fart on the Madding Crowd' is jr. high stuff. I'm partial to 'Dom and Dahmer' myself, talk about high concept.
I've included your titles and if other's would like to contribute they can follow this link.

Thank you for your great site; it's finding things like it that make me love the web in spite of the commercialism and all the chatrooms full of vapid morons saying "LOL" and "ROFL".

Chris
Dear Doug,
BLECCCCCCHHHHH!!!
In other words: Thank you for the info on the Mad covers of the fifties. I was right there, reading the mag in those fifties, laughing my head off, realizing--even at the tender age of 12--that only Mad knew the Truth.
Have you noticed that Mad-style art has spread to other publications? I think the inspiration behind this was Jack Wood (he probably means Wallace Wood or Jack Davis), if I have the name right, whose pictures of crowds, for instance, always included insanely hideous faces locked in the ranks of Normal Americans. What a man.
There is a series of fifties-era posters at McDonald's now with pix of old McDonald's places, 15 cent burgers, and all that. On one of them, a crewcut boy looks at the viewer, waves a burger, and points behind himself to a drive-in McD. If you see it, take a good look. Except for the nose, the kid bears an uncanny likeness to... yes, I kid you not, Alfred E. Keep staring at the kid and the effect is frighteningly hypnotic. I seriously doubt that the original "artist" meant this coincidence, but then again, what if the poster was done by a moonlighting, howling-at-the-moon Mad artist who was slipping in a subliminal plug? Look closer, and maybe there's arsenic spots on the burger?
As a writer, I have been working on a short feature for Mad about the bags you find (or used to find anyway) in the pocket of the seat in front of you on airplanes (how's that for a sentence). They are/were meant for catching vomit. I figure that different lines around the world would have different instructions on the bags, differently shaped bags, and so on. Who knows.
Keep up the revolting (in both senses of the word) work on the site.
Madly,
Dean

PS On a recent visit to NY City, I crossed Madison Ave and paid silent respects to the old HQ of Mad. Someone told me they moved to another building. Wonder who's in the old one now?

Words of wisdom I may take to heart someday: "Continual praise is always strained and bogus."