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Monday, February 4, 2019

Guest Writer - A MAD Magazine Retrospective, with Redartz


Doug: I hope February finds you a happy camper. Here in the Midwest, many of us mark this month as sort of the "dog days" of winter. The month generally begins cold, with plenty of possibilities yet for wintry precipitation. Long about the third week of the month, it's likely we'll see a day or two in the high 60s; we used to just hate it back when I was coaching track & field... The weather during the indoor season could often be nicer than when we began our outdoor meets in mid-March. But I digress...

I am thrilled today to host the musings of a longtime friend and collaborator. Way back in the BAB's heyday, at times my partner Karen and I would face lapses in post ideas or even hear the knock of the Dreaded Deadline Doom. We were fortunate to be able to enlist the aid of two wonderful collaborators who helped us shoulder the load in the last two years of the BAB's run. Those lads then went on to provide two more years of fun in their own space, Back in the Bronze Age. It's a blog that remains open each Tuesday as a forum, but please do check out their backlog of posts - you'll be amazed at the level of creativity and the wonderful community of readers.

Most of my experience with today's topics and artists comes only through paperback reprints of Don Martin's cartoons, or Spy vs. Spy. I was never a regular reader of MAD, or Crazy, or Cracked... So without further rambling from me, allow me to step offstage so that you can enjoy a romp through MAD Magazine, with today's driver, Redartz.





MAD Magazine 147 (December 1971)
MAD Magazine 184 (July 1976)
Redartz: Greetings, everyone. Our illustrious host Doug has graciously offered me a chance to spout off a few MAD words. MAD magazine, that is...
 
MAD magazine nowadays is almost a cultural institution. But back in the days when I read it, away from the disapproving eyes of my Mom, it still had a rather subversive feel. Unlike the comic books I usually read, MAD told its tales in glorious black and white. That alone made it seem more 'adult', somehow. And when you opened the pages of the 40 cent (cheap; it said so right on the cover) mag, you encountered humor much juicier than that found in Archie, Gold Key or Harvey productions.
 
MAD cast its sardonic eye upon all the nuttiness in this crazy world. Politics, movies, TV, sex, espionage, and all the tribulations of everyday life: literally everything was fair game. No wonder my parents frowned upon my reading it. But to my view, it opened up a wide vista of previously verboten subject matter (still a few years before I discovered underground comix). Mad's “usual gang of idiots” presented their iconoclastic humor with wit and a “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” sensibility. Which is only to be expected from an all-star group of creators, many of them veterans of the classic EC comics of the 1950s. Of course, at that point I'd never heard of EC; I just knew I liked Jack Davis's funny drawings...
 
And that seems a perfect spot to segue into a look at some of those creators' work. Oh, be sure to watch within the examples for the almost ubiquitous border scribblings of Sergio Aragones. “They're everywhere, they're everywhere”...
 
To start, here's a bit of fun from the above-mentioned Mr. Davis. This particular example doesn't really highlight Davis' wacky, gawky, exaggerated figurative humor, but does show his penchant for cramming details into a panel, page or cover. The magazine illustrated here pokes some fun at the then-current 'disaster movie' craze.
 
 
Next up is a page from Al Jaffee. Al works in a more "cartoony" style, but one which very effectively gets the joke across to the viewer. Two things I found noteworthy of this page were the lack of panel borders, and the nice contrast between Jaffee's rendering of daytime and nighttime.
 
 
Now here's Dave Berg. A name and artist familiar to anyone who ever read many MAD issues. Berg both wrote and drew his features. Using a rather unflattering, mundane depiction for his cast of ordinary folks, Berg skewered the everyday challenges and frustrations of 20th century life.
 
Another MAD favorite was Don Martin. Martin's slapstick humor and histrionic styling brings to my mind the work of Gary Larson in “The Far Side”. This sample shows a bit of his lighthearted dementia...
 

 
An artist perhaps less familiar by name is Paul Coker, Jr. Coker's almost 'greeting card humor' approach visually may be more recognizable than his name. And you may also recognize his work in the character designs from the animated “Frosty the Snowman” TV special. Coker could hide some rather adult themes within his friendly, appealing drawings...
 


The man behind “Spy vs. Spy” was Antonio Prohias. Clean, angular, purely visual humor that perfectly told the innumerable conflicts of those two antagonistic agents...
 

 
Finally we have Mort Drucker and Angelo Torres. Both of these artists were adept at caricaturing the famous and not-so-famous faces of popular culture. Many of MAD's movie and TV parodies featured the byline of Drucker or Torres. Here's some 70s vintage material from each of them...
 
 

 
Going back into these magazines after so many years away from them was both fun and educational. As a 21st century adult, I still found the humor amusing. Some of the features don't age as well as others, some references are clearly dated. And to be honest, some things found in those vintage issues are rather cringeworthy in today's more politically-correct world. Personally, I found the jokes that held up best were the less topical ones, such as “Spy vs. Spy” and much of Don Martin's drollery. Regardless, reading those magazines now becomes very much a 'time capsule' experience, totally capturing the feel of those heady days of the 70s. Kind of makes me feel the desire to hide them under the bed before my Mom walks in... 

5 comments:

  1. Huh, I don't think I've ever been first to comment before. I was a big MAD fan as a kid (late 70s/early 80s), so this resonates with me. Like you, I tended to gravitate toward Martin, Berg, Prohias, and other "visual" humour. Now that I'm older, I can re-read those issues (and earlier ones) and actually get all the jokes.

    As you said, MAD was almost subversive at times, drawing attention to stuff like drugs, pollution, Vietnam, and the excesses of Big Business long before it was fashionable; unfortunately, not a lot has changed, so those older issues still feel relevant.

    I'm glad you mentioned the movie/TV parodies; those were great! There are a few movies (Marathon Man, Airport) that I've never actually seen, but I feel like I have because I read the MAD stories.

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  2. Mike W.- Good point; many of those jokes kind of went over the head of some of us 70's youths. It really struck me upon reading these now just how in-depth, and edgy, the satire was. And yes, those points are still relevant today.

    Incidentally, MAD is now published by DC Comics (from EC to DC!). I've not looked at an issue in many years, I wonder what the magazine is like today. Might have to check one out and report back...

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  3. Yeah, Mad was the stuff. I was never a regular reader - as with the b&w magazines, they were too expensive despite the cover's assurances of its cheapness - but I did pick it up on occasion (along with Crazy). I also remember reading a lot of the little pocketbook reprints featuring the work of the individual contributors, which I often checked out of the library. Yes, Don Martin's stuff in particular was awesome.
    Back then, I always felt a bit daring reading Mad, but when I look back on it now, I'm even more impressed with just how good the art is. Mort Drucker in particular was amazing - his caricatures so perfectly captured the likenesses of movie and television stars. Angelo Torres, by the way, was not just a stellar inker but also an outstanding artist in his own right. He did a lot of work for EC, naturally, in the 1950s, and later also for Warren's b&w magazines.

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  4. Edo- You're quite right regarding the quality of the artwork. MAD really did have a talented stable of illustrators . And I completely forgot to mention the frequent fine covers by Kelly Freas and Norman Mingo...

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  5. Ugh! I’ve been traveling in Minnesota (may I add it is the worst time of year to do so)! And I am very late to a great topic. I really loved MAD. You covered it all nicely. My favorite part was always the movie spoof. It was amazing how cunning the likenesses and how spot on the satire. My favorite was the 1976 King Kong parody - just perfect.

    And what great black and white art throughout!

    Cheers all.

    Martinex1

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