This site is a volunteer project with the goal of documenting and indexing all MAD collectibles such as magazines, books and merchandise for the free use of MAD readers, collectors, fans and other uneducated people.
MAD Media The MAD Computer Program Posted by Maddest - 29/08/10
Do you remember the MAD Computer Program from issue #258??
I'm sure only a few readers make the effort and entered the whole code into the computer. It should be interesting to see if anything happens after that...
Now you have the big chance to see the result at http://meatfighter.com/mad/!
You can even download the BASIC and JAVA source code!!!
Worlwide MAD Cool Alfred E. Neuman Cameo discovered!!! Posted by Maddest - 26/08/10
MAD fan Michael Elias discovered a pretty cool Alfred E. Neuman Cameo in one of the most famous German music video shows from the 80's! Ronny (the monkey) throws a framed Alfred image into the trash bin! (He didn't like this image, which should portrayed his beloved grandfather). Impatient viewers should jump to minute 5:20!! Have fun...
MAD News COMIC-CON 2010 Interviews: MAD magazine artists 'excited' about TV show for a new generation Posted by Maddest - 26/07/10
MAD magazine legend SERGIO ARAGONES has attended 34 of the previous 40 San Diego Comic-Cons and increasingly, he's found that the convention-going helps introduce MAD to a whole new generation.
Now, he's about to get a big boost in that noble mission.
The DC-owned MAD is pairing with Warner Bros. and story editor/producer KEVIN SHINICK to bring its brilliant satire and dazzling array of artists to TV by creating 15-minute animations.
"It's going to be fast-paced because it's geared to a younger audience," Aragones tells Comic Riffs. "It's for a new audience that probably hasn't read MAD before -- it's a different generation. It's a well-paced modern cartoon with a lot of modern humor -- though they'll also [feature] a couple of us old farts."
(In four decades of drawing for MAD, the California-based Aragones has appeared in every single issue but one -- years ago, he says, when the mails were slow from Europe one week.)
A younger MAD artist, TOM RICHMOND, also is hopeful about the program's potential influence.
MAD News New book: "The Complete Milt Gross Comic Books and Life Story" with Al Jaffee Posted by Maddest - 4/07/10
Milt Gross was a cartooning genius who was championed by Art Spiegelman in "Raw" and Dan Nadel in "Art Out of Time." Gross wrote and drew what many consider to be the first graphic novel, "He Done Her Wrong," and was a popular comic stripper (with hilarious cartoon-style Yiddish-isms), animator, and screenplay writer (co-writer of films with Charlie Chaplin). This beautifully designed book collects the complete comic book stories of comic genius Milt Gross, culled from rare, impossible-to-track-down comic books of the 40s, which have been lovingly restored. In addition to exhuming every one of Gross' wild and crazy comic book stories, this tome shares rarephotos, sketches, and unpublished art, including the previously unknown cover to the Milt Gross Funnies #3!
Note for MAD Fans: The FOLD-IN Introduction was made Al Jaffee
MAD News Cartoonist Davis mister nice guy Posted by Maddest - 25/06/10
ST. SIMONS ISLAND -- Jack Davis, the conspicuous and celebrated cartoonist with 36 Time magazine credits on his resume, hasn't had it so good lately -- both knees have been replaced, his hearing is impaired, a recent fall left him with a fractured vertebra, and the shingles, which first visited him three years ago, won't let go.
"I'm a mess," he said over breakfast at the Sandcastle, "but I'm still here, and I keep busy," his cheerful bearing trumping aches and pains.
What all this means is that on most days, he walks across the breezeway from his kitchen to his studio. After "knocking around" his workplace for a few minutes, he will sit down with his coffee in his Bulldog mug, look out to the Hampton River, and conjure up an idea for something or somebody.
He still has a representative who brings him business, but mostly Jack creates drawings for charities and for his friends, especially those with an affinity for the Bulldogs. Drawing images for Dawg aficionados is balm for his soul. It is therapeutic for a seasoned artist who maintains overt passion for the things he likes.
MAD Art Movie poster art by Jack Davis Posted by Maddest - 17/06/10
In the 1960s, Jack Davis was the first movie poster artist I knew by name, thanks to his contributions to Mad magazine. His style embodied the wacky spirit of that decade and its bipolar craziness which ranged from suburban Camelot and materialistic gluttony to civil rights, drug use and Vietnam. You can read more about Davis at Wikipedia and at Crazy Campsongs. He also illustrated a ton of record album covers, which are on display at The Endless Groove. The following movie posters, some of them icons of their era, click to enlarge:
Essential viewing for anyone old enough to remember single screen movie theatres (with curtains!) before the dawn of homogenized multiplexes and the antiseptic environs of home video, The Smallest Show on Earth (1957) afforded Davis this equally small assignment that sidesteps the picture's subject matter in favor of kartoon kleavage and a 'come hither' stare. In the film, young couple Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna inherit a dilapidated old Bijou, complete with its antiquated staff (including Margaret Rutherford and Peter Sellers) who introduce them to the magic of cinema. Travers and McKenna were married in real life. She became popular in Britain for playing WWII heroine Violette Szabo in Lewis Gilbert's Carve Her Name with Pride (1958), a performance relayed almost entirely through her quivering lower lip, one of the strangest acting tics I've ever seen. She and Travers later shot to international fame in Born Free (1966).
MAD News See MAD Artist Jack Davis’ Illustrations of NBC’s 1965-66 Season for TV Guide Posted by Maddest - 1/06/10
MAD magazine artist extraordinaire Tom Richmond and the great comics/TV writer Mark Evanier both recently did posts highlighting a certain piece of TV-related artwork from the 1960s.
For the 1965-66 Fall season, it seems NBC commissioned legendary MAD artist Jack Davis to create a special piece of artwork to promote their primetime line-up. The large piece of art was run across six pages of the September 11-17, 1965 issue of TV Guide, in full color.
MAD Media Cool video: Mad Magazine Exposed, 1983 Posted by Maddest - 30/05/10
This extremely rare TV story of a 1983 visit to Mad Magazine headquarters meets up with the legendary Bill Gaines, Nick Meglin, John Ficcaro, Al Feldstein, Len Brenner and Dick DeBartolo. During the visit, reporter Jeff Strate, responding to a tip by a stool pigeon writer, launches an investigation into Mad staffer work habits.
MAD News John Landis Gathering Funds for Biopic About Mad Magazine Publisher Bill Gaines Posted by Maddest - 17/05/10
Bill Gaines is one of the most important figures in comic book history. In the '50s he was the man behind E.C. Comics, which with titles like Tales From the Crypt and Weird Science became a scapegoat for juvenile delinquency. A Senate Subcommittee investigation into the effects of horror comics led to a skewed public perception of Gaines that nearly put E.C. out of business. Gaines kept one title, which he developed over many years: Mad Magazine. [read the whole article]
Warning: Mad Magazine is a highly sophisticated, satiric commentary on virtually all phases of American culture and should not be overlooked as a literary source!
