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109-456: The bimonthly title ran 24 issues, numbered 18–41, from 1950 to 1955. In 1952, EC published Two-Fisted Annual which had no new stories but instead bound together past issues of Two-Fisted Tales with a new cover by Kurtzman. The same procedure was repeated in 1953 for an annual with a new Jack Davis cover. Years after its demise, Two-Fisted Tales was reprinted in its entirety and was adapted to television. As with many EC comics published at

218-673: A Civil War setting, was carried briefly by the McClure Syndicate . After rejections from several comic book publishers, he began freelancing for William Gaines 's EC Comics in 1950, contributing to Tales from the Crypt , The Vault of Horror , The Haunt of Fear , Frontline Combat , Two-Fisted Tales , Piracy , Incredible Science Fiction , Crime Suspenstories , Shock Suspenstories , and Terror Illustrated . In 2011, Davis told The Wall Street Journal about his early career and his breakthrough with EC: I

327-436: A Dr. Seuss parody called "Free Speeches On The Beaches"). Distribution to newsstands stopped, with the magazine initially becoming available only through comic-book shops and by subscription, although in 2022 distribution expanded to Barnes & Noble via a series of compilation issues dubbed The Treasure Trove of Trash . Though there are antecedents to Mad ' s style of humor in print, radio and film, Mad became

436-536: A gap-toothed smile, and the perennial motto "What, me worry?" The original image was a popular humorous graphic for many decades before Mad adopted it, but the face is now primarily associated with Mad . Mad initially used the boy's face in November 1954. His first iconic full-cover appearance was as a write-in candidate for president on issue No. 30 (December 1956), in which he was identified by name and sported his "What, me worry?" motto. He has since appeared in

545-453: A 66-card monster-themed set called "You'll Die Laughing", and a 66-card set of Funny Valentine cards. In 1960, Davis illustrated another 66-card set of Funny Valentine cards and in 1961, a set of Giant Funny Valentine cards. In 1964, he illustrated a set of Nutty Awards postcards, also released by Topps Chewing Gum Co., and in 1980 he helped illustrate a set of Topps Bazooka Wanted Posters. Davis illustrated two children's picture books, Bobby and

654-726: A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World . Davis would remain with Mad for more than 30 years until his retirement. His work appeared in 211 of the next 255 issues. He also drew 14 covers for the magazine. Davis had a regular comic strip feature, Superfan , in Pro Quarterback magazine in the early 1970s. It was written by his Mad cohort, Nick Meglin . Davis first worked with TV Guide in 1965, which hired him to illustrate an expansive eight-page advertising supplement for NBC's TV lineup, which featured icons such as Johnny Carson , Dean Martin , and fictional characters such as Dr. Kildare , Napoleon Solo , and Maxwell Smart . His first cover for

763-596: A bank, an advertisement that towered six stories over 53rd Street. Like fellow Mad alumnus Paul Coker, Jr. , Davis also contributed to Rankin-Bass productions; his character designs are featured in Mad Monster Party , The Coneheads , and the cartoon series The King Kong Show , The Jackson 5ive , and The Osmonds . For Raid insecticide, Davis created the animated bug that screamed "Raid?!" Phil Kimmelman Associates created several commercials designed by Davis and animated in his style. Davis produced

872-447: A boisterous 1930s humor publication that made an editorial point of mocking its own sponsors. Feldstein went so far as to propose an in-house Mad ad agency, and produced a "dummy" copy of what an issue with ads could look like. But Bill Gaines was intractable, telling the television news magazine 60 Minutes , "We long ago decided we couldn't take money from Pepsi-Cola and make fun of Coca-Cola." Gaines' motivation in eschewing ad dollars

981-410: A check when you brought in a story. You didn't have to put in a bill or anything. I was very, very hungry and I was thinking about getting married. So I kept the road pretty hot between home and Canal Street. I would go in for that almighty check, go home and do the work, bring it in and get another check and pick up another story. [The actual cross street to Lafayette was Spring Street, not Canal.] Davis

1090-460: A comic book, Mad had run the same advertisements as the rest of EC's line. The magazine later made a deal with Moxie soda that involved inserting the Moxie logo into various articles. Mad ran a limited number of ads in its first two years as a magazine, helpfully labeled "real advertisement" to differentiate the real from the parodies. The last authentic ad published under the original Mad regime

1199-533: A general culture of censorship prevailed in the United States, especially in literature for teens. Activist Tom Hayden said, "My own radical journey began with Mad Magazine ." The rise of such factors as cable television and the Internet has diminished the influence and impact of Mad , although it remains a widely distributed magazine. In a way, Mad ' s power has been undone by its own success: what

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1308-586: A godfather: this same generation later went on to give us the sexual revolution, the environmental movement, the peace movement, greater freedom in artistic expression, and a host of other goodies. Coincidence? You be the judge. Pulitzer Prize -winning art comics maven Art Spiegelman said, "The message Mad had in general is, 'The media is lying to you, and we are part of the media.' It was basically ... 'Think for yourselves, kids. ' " William Gaines offered his own view: when asked to cite Mad ' s philosophy, his boisterous answer was, "We must never stop reminding

1417-485: A legal precedent that only a song's composers retained the right to parody that song. Judge Charles Metzner of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled largely in favor of Mad in 1963, affirming its right to print 23 of the 25 song parodies under dispute. However, in the case of two parodies, "Always" (sung to the tune of " Always ") and "There's No Business Like No Business" (sung to

1526-485: A letter weeks earlier from Lucas himself, expressing delight over the parody and calling artist Mort Drucker and writer Dick DeBartolo "the Leonardo da Vinci and George Bernard Shaw of comic satire." Publisher Bill Gaines made a copy of Lucas' letter, added the handwritten notation "Gee, your boss George liked it!" across the top, and mailed it to the lawyers. Said DeBartolo, "We never heard from them again." Mad

1635-636: A maker of venetian blinds. Around 1964, Premier sold Mad to Independent News , a division of National Periodical Publications , the publisher of DC Comics . In the summer of 1967, Kinney National Company purchased National Periodical Publications. Kinney bought Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in early 1969. As a result of the car parking scandal, Kinney Services spun off of its non-entertainment assets to form National Kinney Corporation in August 1971, and it reincorporated as Warner Communications, Inc. on February 10, 1972. In 1977, National Periodical Publications

1744-425: A particular affinity for depicting American Civil War stories. He also did many covers for Frontline Combat , Two-Fisted Tales and Incredible Science Fiction as well. The editors, William M. Gaines, Albert B. Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman, have said he was the fastest artist they had in those days, completely penciling and inking three or more pages a day at times. His use of the brush to create depth and mood

1853-590: A perfect choice when Harvey Kurtzman launched Mad as a zany, satirical EC comic book in 1952. He appeared in most of the first 30 issues of Mad , all 12 issues of Panic and even some work in Cracked . Davis contributed to other Kurtzman magazines— Trump , Humbug and Help! —eventually expanding into illustrations for record jackets, movie posters, books and magazines, including Time and TV Guide . In 1959, he completed an 88-card set of humorous cartoons for Topps Chewing Gum Co. called Wacky Plaks, also

1962-516: A signature example of it. Throughout the 1950s, Mad featured groundbreaking parodies combining a sentimental fondness for the familiar staples of American culture—such as Archie and Superman —with a keen joy in exposing the fakery behind the image. Its approach was described by Dave Kehr in The New York Times : " Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding on the radio, Ernie Kovacs on television, Stan Freberg on records, Harvey Kurtzman in

2071-482: A slew of guises and comic situations. According to Mad writer Frank Jacobs, a letter was once successfully delivered to the magazine through the U.S. mail bearing only Neuman's face, without any address or other identifying information. The magazine has been involved in various legal actions over the decades, some of which have reached the United States Supreme Court . The most far-reaching

2180-411: A third of this figure by the end of his time as editor. In its earliest incarnation, new issues of the magazine appeared erratically, between four and nine times a year. By the end of 1958, Mad had settled on an unusual eight-times-a-year schedule, which lasted almost four decades. Issues would go on sale 7 to 9 weeks before the start of the month listed on the cover. Gaines felt the atypical timing

2289-539: A title with a story from issue 37). The third story, "Yellow", was adapted from a story written by Al Feldstein and illustrated by Jack Davis for the first issue of EC's Shock SuspenStories . The film had a single telecast in the USA on January 18, 1992, generating little interest, and "Showdown" and "King of the Road" were later extracted to become individual episodes of HBO's Tales From The Crypt television series ("Yellow"

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2398-460: A world of bomb shelters, brinkmanship and toothpaste smiles. Mad ' s consciousness of itself, as trash, as comic book, as enemy of parents and teachers, even as money-making enterprise, thrilled kids. In 1955, such consciousness was possibly nowhere else to be found. In a Mad parody, comic-strip characters knew they were stuck in a strip. "Darnold Duck," for example, begins wondering why he has only three fingers and has to wear white gloves all

2507-421: Is almost in a competition with itself." Mad ' s satiric net was cast wide. The magazine often featured parodies of ongoing American culture, including advertising campaigns, the nuclear family, the media, big business, education and publishing. In the 1960s and beyond, it satirized such burgeoning topics as the sexual revolution , hippies , the generation gap , psychoanalysis , gun politics , pollution,

2616-458: Is an American humor magazine first published in 1952. It was founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines , launched as a comic book series before it became a magazine. It was widely imitated and influential, affecting satirical media, as well as the cultural landscape of the late 20th century, with editor Al Feldstein increasing readership to more than two million during its 1973–1974 circulation peak. The magazine, which

2725-526: Is being lampooned. From 1952 to 2018, Mad published 550 regular magazine issues, as well as scores of reprint "Specials", original-material paperbacks, reprint compilation books and other print projects. After AT&T acquired Time Warner in June 2018, Mad ended newsstand distribution, continuing in comic-book stores and via subscription. Mad began as a comic book published by EC , debuting in August 1952 ( cover date October–November). The Mad office

2834-469: Is the last surviving title from the EC Comics line, publishes satire on all aspects of life and popular culture, politics, entertainment, and public figures. Its format includes TV and movie parodies, and satire articles about everyday occurrences that are changed to seem humorous. Mad ' s mascot, Alfred E. Neuman , is usually on the cover, with his face replacing that of a celebrity or character who

2943-420: Is why you got fancier in the first place—and now you're sunk. Mad has provided a continuing showcase for many long-running satirical writers and artists and has fostered an unusual group loyalty. Although several of the contributors earn far more than their Mad pay in fields such as television and advertising, they have steadily continued to provide material for the publication. Among the notable artists were

3052-639: The Los Angeles Times ' Robert Boyd wrote, "All I really need to know I learned from Mad magazine", going on to assert: Plenty of it went right over my head, of course, but that's part of what made it attractive and valuable. Things that go over your head can make you raise your head a little higher. The magazine instilled in me a habit of mind, a way of thinking about a world rife with false fronts, small print, deceptive ads, booby traps, treacherous language, double standards, half truths, subliminal pitches and product placements; it warned me that I

3161-721: The College of Coastal Georgia in Brunswick, Georgia . His drawing of the Mariner, Capt. Jack, was ultimately selected by the college students and staff as the official school mascot. Davis grew up and went to college in Georgia. Following his professional career in New York, Davis and his wife Dena moved to St. Simons Island, Georgia , in the 1990s. They raised two children: daughter Katie Davis Lloyd and son Jack Davis III, who gave

3270-597: The Vietnam War and recreational drug use . The magazine took a generally negative tone towards counterculture drugs such as cannabis and LSD , but it also savaged mainstream drugs such as tobacco and alcohol . Mad always satirized Democrats as mercilessly as it did Republicans . In 2007, Al Feldstein recalled, "We even used to rake the hippies over the coals. They were protesting the Vietnam War, but we took aspects of their culture and had fun with it. Mad

3379-483: The " Mad Fold-in ", "The Lighter Side of ..." and its television and movie parodies. The magazine has also included recurring gags and references, both visual (e.g. the Mad Zeppelin, or Arthur the potted plant) and linguistic (unusual words such as axolotl , furshlugginer, potrzebie and veeblefetzer). The image most closely associated with the magazine is that of Alfred E. Neuman , the boy with misaligned eyes,

Two-Fisted Tales - Misplaced Pages Continue

3488-495: The 1950s is the same generation that, in the 1960s, opposed a war and didn't feel bad when the United States lost for the first time and in the 1970s helped turn out an Administration and didn't feel bad about that either ... It was magical, objective proof to kids that they weren't alone, that in New York City on Lafayette Street, if nowhere else, there were people who knew that there was something wrong, phony and funny about

3597-624: The 23-issue run of the comic book. To retain Kurtzman as its editor, the comic book converted to magazine format as of issue No. 24, in 1955. The switchover induced Kurtzman to remain for one more year, but the move had removed Mad from the strictures of the Comics Code Authority . William Gaines related in 1992 that Mad "was not changed [into a magazine] to avoid the Code" but "as a result of this [change of format] it did avoid

3706-478: The Civil War included issues 31 and 35 (whose cover depicts an apparently pro-Confederacy message) of Two-Fisted Tales and issue 9 of Frontline Combat . Although originally planned to be seven issues in total, the series was never completed. In 1991, the comic book was adapted for a TV film by producers Joel Silver , Richard Donner , Robert Zemeckis and others. Apart from an opening montage of covers from

3815-841: The Code." Gaines claimed that Kurtzman had at the time received "a very lucrative offer from... Pageant magazine," and seeing as he, Kurtzman, "had, prior to that time, evinced an interest in changing Mad into a magazine," Gaines, "not know[ing] anything about publishing magazines," countered that offer by allowing Kurtzman to make the change. Gaines further stated that "if Harvey [Kurtzman] had not gotten that offer from Pageant , Mad probably would not have changed format." After Kurtzman's departure in 1956, new editor Al Feldstein swiftly brought aboard contributors such as Don Martin , Frank Jacobs , and Mort Drucker , and later Antonio Prohías , Dave Berg , and Sergio Aragonés . The magazine's circulation more than quadrupled during Feldstein's tenure, peaking at 2,132,655 in 1974; it later declined to

3924-578: The Innocent for its depiction of "a comic book baseball game". Others, like "Tain't the Meat, It's the Humanity", "Death of Some Salesman", "Fare Tonight Followed by Increasing Clottiness", "Tight Grip" and "Lower Berth", were Crypt-Keeper classics. He did the covers for every issue of Crypt from issue No. 29 to No. 46. In his work for Harvey Kurtzman 's war comics, he tackled a variety of subjects and had

4033-678: The Magic Pen and The Misadventures of Don Quixote (both still available online). He also has a first-published book of his sketches on Amazon, "The Jack Davis Sketchbook of Untold Spooky Ghost Stories". Davis enjoyed his sketches more than his final artwork because he felt it represented his creative talents. In 1961, Davis wrote, drew and edited his own comic book, Yak Yak , for Dell Comics . In 1965, he illustrated Meet The North American Indians by Elizabeth Payne, published by Random House as part of their children's Step Up Books line. ( ISBN   0-394-80060-5 ). Davis' art appeared in 29 of

4142-470: The New York run also returned to the pages of the California-based issues including contributors Sergio Aragonés , Al Jaffee , Desmond Devlin , Tom Richmond , Peter Kuper , Teresa Burns Parkhurst, Rick Tulka , Tom Bunk , Jeff Kruse, Ed Steckley, Arie Kaplan , writer and former Senior Editor Charlie Kadau , and artist and former Art Director Sam Viviano . The first California issue of Mad

4251-580: The Oscars (April 10, 1971), and Bonanza (August 14, 1971). Years later, while watching a TV interview of Hope, Davis was gratified to notice that his Hope cover was displayed on the back wall of the comedian's office; "it was one of the proudest moments of my life," recalled Davis. Davis created the cartoon bee which (in decal form) appears on the flanks of all the buses in the Bee-Line running from Westchester to New York City. A Westchester resident at

4360-545: The Supreme Court refused to hear it, allowing the decision to stand. This precedent-setting 1964 ruling established the rights of parodists and satirists to mimic the meter of popular songs. However, the "Sing Along With Mad " songbook was not the magazine's first venture into musical parody. In 1960, Mad had published "My Fair Ad-Man", a full advertising-based spoof of the hit Broadway musical My Fair Lady . In 1959, "If Gilbert & Sullivan wrote Dick Tracy "

4469-410: The aforementioned Davis, Elder and Wood, as well as Sergio Aragonés , Mort Drucker , Don Martin , Dave Berg, George Woodbridge , Harry North and Paul Coker . Writers such as Dick DeBartolo , Stan Hart , Frank Jacobs , Tom Koch , and Arnie Kogen appeared regularly in the magazine's pages. In several cases, only infirmity or death has ended a contributor's run at Mad. Within the industry, Mad

Two-Fisted Tales - Misplaced Pages Continue

4578-615: The age of 12 when he contributed a cartoon to the reader's page of Tip Top Comics No. 9 (December 1936). After drawing for his high school newspaper and yearbook, he spent three years in the U.S. Navy during World War II , where he contributed to the daily Navy News . Attending the University of Georgia on the G.I. Bill , he drew for the campus newspaper and helped launch an off-campus humor publication, Bullsheet , which he described as "not political or anything but just something with risque jokes and cartoons." After graduation, he

4687-560: The artwork for several of Sheb Wooley 's comic albums as his character Ben Colder. In 1974, Davis provided artwork for Atco Records ' printed advertisements of the Genesis album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway . During his tenure with Mad , Davis's specialty was drawing sports-themed articles. This led to his work for Paramount Pictures, painting the poster for The Bad News Bears (1976). While Davis resided on St. Simons Island, Georgia, he sketched various characters and mascots for

4796-546: The artwork for the poster for the 1963 comedy chase film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World . In 2014, he remembered an experience from that year: "My dad had Parkinson's disease, and he paid me a visit. He really had not been to New York in—well, ever—and he came out of the station and saw the signboard [advertising the film], very big signboard in Times Square. That was a big thrill. Little old me ..." Two years later, he parodied his own Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World image for

4905-749: The cause of his father's death on July 27, 2016, at age 91 as complications from a stroke. Davis was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2003. He received the National Cartoonists Society 's Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. A finalist for inclusion in the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990, 1991, and 1992, he received the National Cartoonists Society's Advertising Award for 1980 and their Reuben Award for 2000. He

5014-619: The centerpiece of that film's promotional campaign, and he did the same for the film Kelly's Heroes in 1970. His poster for Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973) presented the film in a comic light. In 1963 Davis produced a work of cover art for the Richard Wolfe album, Many Happy Returns of the Day! released by MGM Records , and designed the Homer and Jethro album, Homer and Jethro Go West ( RCA Victor ). In 1964, Davis created

5123-466: The comic book and use of comic's logo, the movie had little connection with Kurtzman's creation. In imitation of EC's horror books, the anthology drama featured ghostly gunfighter Mr. Rush (Bill Sadler) as a host and a device to connect the segments, although Kurtzman's war-adventure stories had never been introduced by a host. Two of the stories, "Showdown" and "King of the Road", were original scripts and not adaptations from EC (although "Showdown" did share

5232-442: The correct numbering for the remainder of its run. Kurtzman's editing approach to Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat was a stark contrast to fellow EC editor Al Feldstein 's style. Whereas Feldstein allowed his artists to draw the story however they chose, Kurtzman prepared detailed layouts for each story and required his artists to follow them exactly. Kurtzman's writing tended to use less text than Feldstein's, which enabled

5341-595: The cover art for The New Christy Minstrels album for Columbia Records which featured songs from the light-hearted Western comedy Advance to the Rear . In 1966, Davis created the cover art for the Johnny Cash album Everybody Loves a Nut . Davis also created album artwork for such musicians as The Guess Who , Tito Puente , Sailcat , and The Cowsills , as well as for such comedians as Bob and Ray , Archie Campbell , Don Imus , and Myron Cohen . He also provided

5450-559: The cover of the Mad paperback It's a World, World, World, World Mad , his first work for the magazine following an almost seven-year hiatus. Having returned, Davis would remain a regular freelancer for more than thirty years. When the Criterion Collection released the film on DVD and Blu-ray in 2014, Davis provided new illustrations for the accompanying booklet. Davis's artwork for the comedy Western Viva Max! (1969) formed

5559-530: The depressing aspects of war, and this, to me, was such a dumb—it was a terrible disservice to the children. In addition to contemporary stories about the Korean War and World War II, Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat contained a number of stories taking place in historical settings, including the Civil War, the Revolutionary War and ancient Rome. A series of special issues dedicated to

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5668-546: The early issues of Mad : all of those pioneering humorists and many others realized that the real world mattered less to people than the sea of sounds and images that the ever more powerful mass media were pumping into American lives." Bob and Ray , Kovacs and Freberg all became contributors to Mad . In 1977, Tony Hiss and Jeff Lewis wrote in The New York Times about the then-25-year-old publication's initial effect: The skeptical generation of kids it shaped in

5777-719: The end of 2017 with issue No. 550 ( cover-dated April 2018), in preparation for the relocation of its offices to DC Entertainment 's headquarters in Burbank, California . Bill Morrison was named in June 2017 to succeed Ficarra in January 2018. None of MAD ' s New York staff made the move, resulting in a change in editorial leadership, tone, and art direction. More than a hundred new names made their Mad debuts including Brian Posehn , Maria Bamford , Ian Boothby , Luke McGarry , Akilah Hughes , and future Pulitzer Prize finalist Pia Guerra . Scores of artists and writers from

5886-435: The even more hilarious picture of the hydrogen bomb!" The jittery aftertaste of that joke clarified. It was a splinter driven through the carefully measured prose on the back of some Mentor book about Man and His Destiny ... By not fitting in, a joke momentarily interrupted the world. But after the joke you recognized it was a joke and went back to the integral world that the joke broke. But what if it never came back again, and

5995-420: The first 31 issues of Mad , totaling 66 articles, covers and house ads. But when editor Harvey Kurtzman quit the magazine following a dispute with publisher Bill Gaines , Davis chose to leave with him. He returned as a regular contributor to Mad magazine in 1965, starting with the cover for the paperback It's a World, World, World, World MAD , in which he parodied his own poster art for the comedy film It's

6104-559: The illogical, hypocritical, self-serious and ludicrous" before concluding, "Nowadays, it's part of the oxygen we breathe." Joyce Carol Oates called it "wonderfully inventive, irresistibly irreverent and intermittently ingenious." Artist Dave Gibbons said, "When you think of the people who grew up in the '50s and '60s, the letters M-A-D were probably as influential as L-S-D, in that it kind of expanded people's consciousness and showed them an alternative view of society and consumer culture—mocked it, satirized it." Gibbons also noted that Mad

6213-566: The impact and influence of Kurtzman's approach: "Unlike other magazines of the day, no one could accuse Two-Fisted Tales of being wartime propaganda. On the contrary, the magazine was a brutally honest look at battles and wars throughout history. Kurtzman, who had been drafted in 1942, knew warfare firsthand, and he was outraged by the gung-ho war comics that made war look like a glorious thing. In his stories, there were no heroes—just soldiers trapped in situations beyond their control. Often, his stories weren't about soldiers at all, focusing instead on

6322-587: The little gap stayed there and became everything? In 1994, Brian Siano in The Humanist discussed the effect of Mad on that segment of people already disaffected from society: For the smarter kids of two generations, Mad was a revelation: it was the first to tell us that the toys we were being sold were garbage, our teachers were phonies, our leaders were fools, our religious counselors were hypocrites, and even our parents were lying to us about damn near everything. An entire generation had William Gaines for

6431-445: The lives of innocent people scarred by war." Kurtzman discussed his approach to Two-Fisted Tales in a 1980 interview: When I thought of doing a war book, the business of what to say about war was very important to me and was uppermost in my mind, because I did then feel very strongly about not wanting to say anything glamorous about war, and everything that went before Two-Fisted Tales had glamorized war. Nobody had done anything on

6540-405: The luckiest guy in the world." Davis would contribute 23 covers for TV Guide between 1968 and 1981. In 2013 the magazine honored him in a retrospective in which it recounted his history with the publication and spotlighted some of his most memorable covers, including those depicting Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (March 28, 1970), Davis's childhood hero Bob Hope for a cover on Hope's history with

6649-489: The magazine came in 1968, when he depicted a tribute to Andy Griffith , in which the actor was hoisted on the shoulders of his costars, Don Knotts and Jim Nabors . Davis recalls, "Every assignment was a thrill because TV Guide was the top magazine in the country. I couldn't wait to get in my little MG and drive from New York out to the magazine's offices in Radnor, Pennsylvania, to show the editors my latest design. I felt like

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6758-417: The magazine was obliged to abandon its long-time home at 485 Madison Avenue and in the mid-1990s it moved into DC Comics's offices at the same time that DC relocated to 1700 Broadway . In issue No. 403 of March 2001, the magazine broke its long-standing taboo and began running paid advertising. The outside revenue allowed the introduction of color printing and improved paper stock. After Meglin retired in 2004,

6867-407: The magazine's impact on him, saying, "You start reading it, and you're going, 'These people don't respect anything .' And that just exploded my head. It was like, you don't have to buy it. You can say 'This is stupid. This is stupid. ' " Critic Roger Ebert wrote: I learned to be a movie critic by reading Mad magazine ... Mad ' s parodies made me aware of the machine inside the skin—of

6976-419: The magazine's parody of the film The Empire Strikes Back , a letter from George Lucas 's lawyers arrived in Mad' s offices demanding that the issue be recalled for infringement on copyrighted figures. The letter further demanded that the printing plates be destroyed, and that Lucasfilm must receive all revenue from the issue plus additional punitive damages. Unbeknownst to Lucas' lawyers, Mad had received

7085-517: The magazine, such as The Mad Magazine Game , a series of video games based on Spy vs. Spy , and the notorious Up the Academy movie (which the magazine later disowned). Mad explicitly promised that it would never make its mailing list available. Both Kurtzman and Feldstein wanted the magazine to solicit advertising, feeling this could be accomplished without compromising Mad' s content or editorial independence. Kurtzman remembered Ballyhoo ,

7194-574: The majority of the book's stories from 1950 through 1953, with Jerry DeFuccio contributing one-page text stories and the occasional regular story as well. Colin Dawkins provided the writing for the majority of the stories for 1954 and 1955, with contributions from Davis, Evans and Severin. John Putnam, who scripted "Dien Bien Phu!" (#40), later became the art director of EC's Mad . The stories Kurtzman wrote for this title often displayed an anti-war attitude. Canadian journalist Mitchell Brown wrote about

7303-405: The margins as all of culture competes for trickster status." Longtime contributor Al Jaffee described the dilemma to an interviewer in 2010: "When Mad first came out, in 1952, it was the only game in town. Now, you've got graduates from Mad who are doing The Today Show or Stephen Colbert or Saturday Night Live . All of these people grew up on Mad . Now Mad has to top them. So Mad

7412-410: The owner of the copyright had allowed the image to pass into the public domain, thus establishing the right of Mad —or anyone else—to use the image. In addition, Mad established that Stuff was not himself the creator of the image, by producing numerous other examples dating back to the late 19th century. This decision was also allowed to stand. Other legal disputes were settled more easily. Following

7521-652: The president of the Letter Carriers Union gave his blessing, and the stamp was well received. Although postal policy does not allow artists to portray living persons on stamps, one of the carriers in the stamp is an unmistakable self-portrait of Davis. In 2019, Davis was posthumously awarded the Inkwell Awards Stacey Aragon Special Recognition Award for his lifetime of work in the inking field. Mad (magazine) Mad (stylized as MAD )

7630-399: The reader what little value they get for their money!" Comics historian Tom Spurgeon picked Mad as the medium's top series of all time, writing, "At the height of its influence, Mad was The Simpsons , The Daily Show and The Onion combined." Graydon Carter chose it as the sixth-best magazine of any sort ever, describing Mad ' s mission as being "ever ready to pounce on

7739-457: The same place and move the background around. We quite mercilessly stole the wonderful techniques Harvey Kurtzman had invented in Mad . In a 1985 Tonight Show appearance, when Johnny Carson asked Michael J. Fox , "When did you really know you'd made it in show business?", Fox replied, "When Mort Drucker drew my head." In 2019, Terence Winter , writer and producer of The Sopranos , told Variety "When we got into Mad Magazine, that

7848-491: The team of Ficarra (as executive editor) Raiola and Kadau (as senior editors), and Sam Viviano , who had taken over as art director in 1999, would helm Mad for the next 14 years. Throughout the years, MAD remained a unique mix of adolescent silliness and political humor. In November 2017, Rolling Stone wrote that "operating under the cover of barf jokes, MAD has become America's best political satire magazine." Nevertheless, Mad ended its 65-year run in New York City at

7957-429: The time, Two-Fisted Tales did not start with issue number one; a renaming of The Haunt of Fear , Two-Fisted Tales began with issue #18 ( cover-dated Dec. 1950) and ran 24 issues through #41 (March 1955). Wholesaler problems had caused Gaines to consider canceling The Haunt of Fear , but he changed his mind without skipping an issue. Two-Fisted Tales took over the numbering, and The Haunt of Fear then reverted to

8066-485: The time, Davis lived directly adjacent to one of the Bee Line's bus routes, and he mentioned in an interview how gratifying it was to see his own artwork drive past his window several times every day. Similar synchronicity happened when Mad moved to 1700 Broadway, where the magazine's fifth-floor production department was next to a wall three feet away that had previously been the location of an immense Davis cartoon for

8175-443: The time. He ends up wanting to murder every other Disney character. G.I. Schmoe tries to win the sexy Asiatic Red Army broad by telling her, "O.K., baby! You're all mine! I gave you a chance to hit me witta gun butt ... But naturally, you have immediately fallen in love with me, since I am a big hero of this story." Mad is often credited with filling a vital gap in political satire from the 1950s to 1970s, when Cold War paranoia and

8284-427: The tune of " There's No Business Like Show Business "), Judge Metzner decided that the issue of copyright infringement was closer, requiring a trial because in each case the parodies relied on the same verbal hooks ("always" and "business") as the originals. The music publishers appealed the ruling, but the U.S. Court of Appeals not only upheld the pro- Mad decision in regard to the 23 songs, it adopted an approach that

8393-413: The two war titles to be hand-lettered rather than machine-lettered like the remainder of EC's titles. Kurtzman was dedicated to making the stories as historically accurate as possible and along with assistant Jerry DeFuccio put a lot of research into each story. As a result, where Feldstein took generally about a week to complete each issue he edited, Kurtzman took approximately a month. Two-Fisted Tales

8502-451: The way a movie might look original on the outside, while inside it was just recycling the same old dumb formulas. I did not read the magazine, I plundered it for clues to the universe. Pauline Kael lost it at the movies ; I lost it at Mad magazine. Rock singer Patti Smith said more succinctly, "After Mad , drugs were nothing." Mad is known for many regular and semi-regular recurring features in its pages, including " Spy vs. Spy ",

8611-539: The work that impressed them in their childhood and youth. I still feel extremely inadequate when I look at the old Mad comics." When Weird Al Yankovic was asked whether Mad had had any influence in putting him on a road to a career in parody, the musician replied, "[It was] more like going off a cliff." Mystery Science Theater 3000 writer-actor Frank Conniff wrote, "Without Mad Magazine, MST3K would have been slightly different, like for instance, it wouldn't have existed." Comedian Jerry Seinfeld talked about

8720-400: The years, the Mad crew traveled to such locales as France, Kenya , Russia, Hong Kong, England, Amsterdam , Tahiti , Morocco , Italy, Greece, and Germany. The tradition ended with Gaines' death, and a 1993 trip to Monte Carlo . Although Mad was an exclusively freelance publication, it achieved remarkable stability, with numerous contributors remaining prominent for decades. Critics of

8829-408: The younger generation of the 1950s: By now they knew the [nuclear survival] pamphlets lied ... Rod Serling knew a lot more than President Eisenhower . There were even jokes about the atom bomb in Mad , a gallows humor commenting on its own ghastliness: "The last example of this nauseating, busted-crutch type humor is to show an atom-bomb explosion! However, this routine, we feel, is giving way to

8938-435: Was Irving Berlin et al. v. E.C. Publications, Inc. In 1961, a group of music publishers representing songwriters such as Irving Berlin , Richard Rodgers , and Cole Porter filed a $ 25 million lawsuit against Mad for copyright infringement following "Sing Along With Mad ", a collection of parody lyrics which the magazine said could be "sung to the tune of" many popular songs. The publishing group hoped to establish

9047-704: Was a cartoonist intern at The Atlanta Journal , and he worked one summer inking Ed Dodd 's Mark Trail comic strip , a strip which he later parodied in Mad as Mark Trade . In 1949, Davis illustrated a Coca-Cola training manual, a job that gave him enough money to buy a car and drive to New York. Attending the Art Students League of New York , he found work with the Herald Tribune Syndicate as an inker on Leslie Charteris 's The Saint comic strip, drawn by Mike Roy in 1949–1950. His own humor strip, Beauregard, with gags in

9156-434: Was about ready to give up, go home to Georgia and be either a forest ranger or a farmer. But I went down to Canal Street and Lafayette, up in an old rickety elevator and through a glass door to Entertaining Comics where Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines were putting out horror [comic] books. They looked at my work and it was horrible and they gave me a job right away! Every time you went in to see Bill Gaines, he would write you

9265-485: Was an overt influence on Watchmen , the acclaimed 12-issue comic book series created by writer Alan Moore and himself: When it comes to the kind of storytelling we did in Watchmen , we used many of the tricks Harvey Kurtzman perfected in Mad . The thing for instance where you have a background that remains constant, and have characters walk around in front of it. Or the inverse of that, where you have characters in

9374-445: Was automatically invited, along with freelancers who had qualified for an invitation by selling a set number of articles or pages during the previous year. Gaines was strict about enforcing this quota, and one year, longtime writer and frequent traveller Arnie Kogen was bumped off the list. Later that year, Gaines' mother died, and Kogen was asked if he would be attending the funeral. "I can't," said Kogen, "I don't have enough pages." Over

9483-731: Was award the Inkpot Award in 1985. In June 2002, Davis had a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Society of Illustrators in New York. He was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2005. In 1989, Davis was commissioned by the United States Postal Service to design the 25-cent Letter Carriers stamp. There was some concern that the cartoon would offend some letter carriers as being too informal and not respectful of their position. However,

9592-547: Was broad enough to strip the publishers of their limited victory regarding the remaining two songs. Writing a unanimous opinion for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit , Circuit Judge Irving Kaufman observed, "We doubt that even so eminent a composer as plaintiff Irving Berlin should be permitted to claim a property interest in iambic pentameter ." The publishers again appealed, but

9701-494: Was exhibited as an episode in the year before). Welsh drum and bass and electronic music producer and DJ Lincoln Barrett adopted the name Two Fisted Tales as a pseudonym under which to produce primarily house music tracks. Jack Davis (cartoonist) John Burton Davis Jr. (December 2, 1924 – July 27, 2016) was an American cartoonist and illustrator , known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art, and numerous comic book stories. He

9810-434: Was for Famous Artists School ; two issues later, the inside front cover of issue No. 34 had a parody of the same ad. After this transitional period, the only promotions to appear in Mad for decades were house ads for Mad' s own books and specials, subscriptions, and promotional items such as ceramic busts, T-shirts, or a line of Mad jewelry. This rule was bent only a few times to promote outside products directly related to

9919-516: Was forced to fold the title. Over its four-year span, the comic ran for 24 issues, ending with issue 41, in February 1955. Two-Fisted Tales has been reprinted several times. It was fully reprinted in a series of four black-and-white hardcover books by publisher Russ Cochran as part of The Complete EC Library in 1980. Between October 1992 and July 1998, Cochran, in association with Gemstone Publishing , reprinted all 24 issues. This complete run

10028-425: Was initially located in lower Manhattan at 225 Lafayette Street, while in the early 1960s it moved to 485 Madison Avenue , the location listed in the magazine as "485 MADison Avenue". The first issue was written almost entirely by Harvey Kurtzman , and featured illustrations by him, Wally Wood , Will Elder , Jack Davis , and John Severin . Wood, Elder, and Davis were to be the three main illustrators throughout

10137-463: Was known for the uncommonly prompt manner in which its contributors were paid. Publisher Gaines would typically write a personal check and give it to the artist upon receipt of the finished product. Wally Wood said, "I got spoiled ... Other publishers don't do that. I started to get upset if I had to wait a whole week for my check." Another lure for contributors was the annual "Mad Trip", an all-expenses-paid tradition that began in 1960. The editorial staff

10246-636: Was later rebound, with covers included, in a series of five softcover EC Annuals . In 2007, Cochran and Gemstone began to publish hardcover, digitally colored volumes of Two-Fisted Tales as part of the EC Archives series. Two volumes of a projected four were published before the project fell into limbo. Dark Horse resumed publication of the series in 2014, releasing the fourth and final volume in 2019. In 1993 , Dark Horse Comics published two issues of Harvey Kurtzman's The New Two-Fisted Tales , featuring war stories by contemporary creators. The first

10355-485: Was less philosophical than practical: We'd have to improve our package. Most advertisers want to appear in a magazine that's loaded with color and has super-slick paper. So you find yourself being pushed into producing a more expensive package. You get bigger and fancier and attract more advertisers. Then you find you're losing some of your advertisers. Your readers still expect the fancy package, so you keep putting it out, but now you don't have your advertising income, which

10464-463: Was necessary to maintain the magazine's level of quality. Beginning in 1994, Mad then began incrementally producing additional issues per year, until it reached a monthly schedule with issue No. 353 (Jan. 1997). With its 500th issue (June 2009), amid company-wide cutbacks at Time Warner, the magazine temporarily regressed to a quarterly publication before settling to six issues per year in 2010. Gaines sold his company in 1961 to Premier Industries,

10573-408: Was often merely the target of people who claimed to be my friend; it prompted me to mistrust authority, to read between the lines, to take nothing at face value, to see patterns in the often shoddy construction of movies and TV shows; and it got me to think critically in a way that few actual humans charged with my care ever bothered to. In 1988, Geoffrey O'Brien wrote about the impact Mad had upon

10682-509: Was one of several parties that filed amicus curiae briefs with the Supreme Court in support of 2 Live Crew and its disputed song parody, during the 1993 Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. case. Mad was long noted for its absence of advertising, enabling it to satirize materialist culture without fear of reprisal. For decades, it was the most successful American magazine to publish ad-free, beginning with issue No. 33 (April 1957) and continuing through issue No. 402 (February 2001). As

10791-462: Was one of the founding cartoonists for Mad in 1952. His cartoon characters are characterized by extremely exaggerated anatomy, including big heads, skinny legs, and large feet. Davis was born December 2, 1924, in Atlanta, Georgia. As a child, he enjoyed listening to Bob Hope on the radio and tried to draw him, despite not knowing what Hope looked like. Davis saw comic book publication at

10900-546: Was one of the speculative pairings in "If Famous Authors Wrote the Comics". In 1966, a series of copyright infringement lawsuits against the magazine regarding ownership of the Alfred E. Neuman image eventually reached the appellate level. Although Harry Stuff had copyrighted the image in 1914, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that, by allowing many copies of the image to circulate without any copyright notice,

11009-534: Was particularly noted for his depiction of the Crypt-Keeper in the horror comics, revamping the character's appearance from the more simplistic Al Feldstein version to a tougher, craggier, mangier man with hairy warts, salivating mouth and oversized hands and feet, who usually did not wear shoes. Among the classic horror tales he illustrated were "Foul Play", which was cited in Dr. Fredric Wertham 's book Seduction of

11118-433: Was published April 1, 1993 and the last August 1, 1993. They contained four stories in both issues. Artists who contributed included Kurtzman and other EC regulars such as John Severin , Jack Davis , Wally Wood , George Evans , Will Elder , Reed Crandall and Bernard Krigstein . Non-EC regulars that contributed to the comic included Alex Toth , Ric Estrada , Gene Colan , Joe Kubert and Dave Berg . Kurtzman wrote

11227-409: Was published with a companion title, Frontline Combat , for most of its run. Towards the end of 1953, a decrease in interest due to the end of the Korean War, as well as Kurtzman becoming overwhelmed with his work on Mad required changes to be made. Frontline Combat was dropped entirely while Two-Fisted Tales was changed from bi-monthly to quarterly publication. As sales continued to drop, Gaines

11336-524: Was renamed DC Comics. Feldstein retired in 1985, and was replaced by the senior team of Nick Meglin and John Ficarra , who co-edited Mad for the next two decades. Long-time production artist Lenny "The Beard" Brenner was promoted to art director and Joe Raiola and Charlie Kadau joined the staff as junior editors. Following Gaines's death in 1992, Mad became more ingrained within the Time Warner (now WarnerMedia ) corporate structure. Eventually,

11445-761: Was renumbered as "#1." In 2019, the rebooted magazine earned two Eisner Award nominations—the first such nominations in MAD's history—for the Best Short Story and Best Humor Publication categories. AT&T acquired Time Warner in June 2018. Morrison exited MAD by March 2019, during a time of layoffs and restructuring at DC Entertainment. After issue No. 10 (Dec. 2019) of the new Burbank edition, Mad began to consist mostly of curated reprints with new covers and fold-ins, although some new articles have been periodically featured, including parodies of The Batman ("The Bathroom") and Elon Musk's tenure at Twitter (in

11554-636: Was subversive in the 1950s and 1960s is now commonplace. However, its impact on three generations of humorists is incalculable, as can be seen in the frequent references to Mad on the animated series The Simpsons . The Simpsons producer Bill Oakley said, " The Simpsons has transplanted Mad magazine. Basically everyone who was young between 1955 and 1975 read Mad , and that's where your sense of humor came from. And we knew all these people, you know, Dave Berg and Don Martin—all heroes, and unfortunately, now all dead." In 2009, The New York Times wrote, " Mad once defined American satire; now it heckles from

11663-457: Was the highlight for me. That said everything." Monty Python 's Terry Gilliam wrote, " Mad became the Bible for me and my whole generation." Underground cartoonist Bill Griffith said of his youth, " Mad was a life raft in a place like Levittown , where all around you were the things that Mad was skewering and making fun of." Robert Crumb remarked, "Artists are always trying to equal

11772-574: Was unique and memorable. His wrinkled clothing, scratchy lines, and multi-layered layouts were so popular in the 1950s that other artists at rival companies began copying the style—notably, Howard Nostrand in Harvey 's horror comics. In the late 1950s, Davis drew Western stories for Atlas Comics . His 1963 work on the Rawhide Kid (#33–35) was his last for non-humor comic books. His style of wild, free-flowing brushwork and wacky characters made him

11881-566: Was wide open. Bill loved it, and he was a capitalist Republican. I loved it, and I was a liberal Democrat. That went for the writers, too; they all had their own political leanings, and everybody had a voice. But the voices were mostly critical. It was social commentary, after all." Mad also ran a good deal of less topical or contentious material on such varied subjects as fairy tales , nursery rhymes , greeting cards , sports, small talk , poetry, marriage, comic strips , awards shows , cars and many other areas of general interest. In 2007,

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