MAD magazine in the 1950s
MAD Magazine, which began publication in 1952, emerged as a significant cultural phenomenon in the 1950s. Initially launched as a ten-cent comic book titled "Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad," it offered illustrated parodies of popular culture, targeting a teenage and young adult audience without speaking down to them. The magazine featured satirical stories that critiqued various aspects of American society, from superheroes to films, all while embracing a distinctive visual style filled with humor and detail. In 1955, to circumvent restrictive censorship imposed on comic books, MAD transitioned into a magazine format that allowed for more diverse content and the absence of advertising, enabling it to mock consumerism freely.
Under the guidance of publisher William Gaines and writer Harvey Kurtzman, MAD's unique voice flourished, even as it faced challenges like the Comics Code Authority. The magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, personified its irreverent attitude with the motto “What—Me Worry?” MAD's influence extended beyond its immediate readership; its satirical approach left a lasting mark on American humor and inspired numerous subsequent magazines and television shows. As it gained popularity, MAD pushed the boundaries of comedy, making it a crucial part of the cultural landscape during a politically charged era.
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MAD magazine in the 1950s
Identification Satirical magazine
Date First published in 1952
Publisher William M. Gaines
Originally a satirical comic book, MAD responded to censorship and marketing pressures in 1955 by becoming a magazine and turning its focus to sophisticated parodies and satires on many facets of American pop culture.
Key Figures
William M. Gaines (1922-1992), author
MAD began in October, 1952, with the publication of the first volume of a ten-cent comic book called Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad. The first issue was thirty-two pages long and aimed for the teenager and young-adult market but did not talk down to its readership. A total of twenty-three similar issues would eventually be produced. The comic books presented illustrated parodies of other comic book stalwarts such as superheroes, Archie, and Micky Mouse, as well as films and other cultural touchstones. Stories tended to ridicule the divergence between reality and life as portrayed in comics and films.
Each issue contained four stories, all in color. The stories were written by Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by artists such as Bill Elder, Jack Davis, John Severin, and Wally Wood. Their style followed a general pattern, with an opening panel crammed with the main characters, visual jokes, and enough small background detail to allow a reader to notice something new even after several readings. Many of the earlier volumes also contained a one-page written humorous piece, usually by Jerry DeFuccio.
Publisher William Gaines, along with Kurtzman, started Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad after censorship had ruined his earlier horror comic line. However, comic books in general became the target for various groups concerned with a rise in juvenile delinquency. Following U.S. Senate hearings on the problem in 1955, the comic book industry adopted a strict code of what could be published. As a result, comic books as a literary form in the United States quickly became harmless pulp aimed at mcuh younger audiences. Compliance with the Comics Code, although theoretically voluntary, killed Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad: Newsdealers would not sell a comic that did not carry the seal of the Comics Code Authority. For Gaines to bring Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad in line with the Comics Code would have betrayed its very reason for existence. To avoid the code and reach a broader market, Gaines reworked his concept and, in 1955, debuted his new MAD magazine.
MAD Magazine
The new MAD magazine, although illustrated in black and white, contained a more varied assortment of features in order to justify its higher price of twenty-five cents. The lack of advertising in the magazine allowed MAD to ridicule potentially lucrative advertisers. From cars to cigarettes to entertainment, MAD skewered mass consumerism without fear of reprisal in the form of lost advertising revenue. In addition to satires of popular films, other features parodied diverse aspects of American mass culture, such as eating out, the suburbs, and increasingly, television.
Kurtzman left with most of the magazine’s artists shortly after the change in format when Hugh Hefner hired him for his new humor magazine Trump, but Gaines was able to recruit excellent writers and artists such as Don Martin, George Woodbridge, Mort Drucker, Norman Mingo, Kelly Freas, Bob Clarke, and Dave Berg, and kept the quality high. Most of Gaines’s staff were unknown at the time but would be the cornerstone of the magazine’s later success. Except for celebrity contributors such as Sid Caesar, Tom Lehrer, and Ernie Kovacs , writers received no bylines during the early years. Gaines compensated his talent by paying promptly and at higher rates than most of the industry. In return, Gaines acquired sole rights to republish material in compilations without further compensating artists and writers.
Although MAD came from a slightly left-of-center stance in that it mocked most consistently what would later be called “The Establishment,” it tended to be apolitical and made fun of public figures from across the political spectrum. A noticeable early departure from Gaines’s ideal of ignoring politics came with the comic book’s satirical attack on Senator Joseph McCarthy at a time when few others dared to challenge him openly.
The magazine adopted as its mascot an image of a young man with a missing front tooth and slightly misaligned eyes, who wore a vacant expression of pleasure. The mascot, named Alfred E. Neuman by MAD, had been used in advertising for decades. His image bore the motto “What—Me Worry?” which would often be used as a not-very-subtle poke at anyone who thought all was right in modern society.
Impact
MAD magazine reached a zenith during the 1950’s and early 1960’s, when it occupied an otherwise empty niche in the market. MAD’s satires of American culture during the height of the Cold War kept alive a healthy criticism of modern life at a time when anything criticizing American culture tended to be seen as subversive. Although often overlooked in its impact on American culture, the magazine’s influence can best be measured by how mainstream its form of humor had become by the 1980’s. Besides obvious copycat magazines such as Cracked, Crazy, and Sick, other magazines such as Playboy, National Lampoon, and Spy owed much to MAD’s pioneering efforts. Television, so often a target of MAD, adopted much of MAD’s style of humor, with such influence most strongly evident in shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. MAD’s success dulled the magazine’s sharp edge by the mid-1970’s, when it no longer stood alone in its style of criticizing modern American life.
Bibliography
Otfinoski, Steven. William Gaines: Mad Man (Made in America). Vero Beach, Fla.: Rourke Book Company, 1993. A biography of the founder and longtime guiding force behind MAD.
Reidelbach, Maria. Completely Mad: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine. New York: Little, Brown, 1991. A largely uncritical history of MAD, focusing on Gaines and business aspects of the magazine.
“The Usual Gang of Idiots.” MAD About the Fifties. Boston: Little, Brown, 1999. A collection of material from the comic book and magazine during the 1950’s, plus a brief history of the company.
Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Scholarly account of the rise of the comic book during the 1930’s, through its retrenchment in the face of governmental pressure during the 1950’s, to its state at the end of the twentieth century.