Posted on 05/01/2014 6:35:15 AM PDT by Borges
Al Feldstein, who took over a fledgling humor magazine called Mad in 1956 and made it a popular, profitable and enduring wellspring of American satire, died on Tuesday at his ranch in Paradise Valley, Mont. He was 88.
His wife, the former Michelle Key, confirmed the death. In recent years, he was a wildlife and landscape painter in Montana, outside Livingston.
Mr. Feldstein had been a writer and illustrator of comic books when he became editor of Mad four years into its life and just a year after it had graduated from comic-book form to a full-fledged magazine.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
That’s funny, he doesn’t look guruish.
What a talent.
RIP, Al
For better or worse, I like to think that “Mad” magazine had an influential impact on my sarcastic sense of humor, and love for satire and parody. Growing up in the 1970’s, I loved the magazine.
RIP, and thanks for decades of fun.
RIP, Al. Thanks for all the laughs.
As Don Martin would say, “Frrissssshpthk, he’s gone.”
RIP
Mad Magazine was a Rite Of Passage for the All-American boy.
It seemed that most girls (and parents) never saw the humor while the young boys would be rolling in the streets with hysterical laughter.
Mad Magazine is largely responsible for my sense of humor, to this day.
I learned far more about advertising from the ORIGINAL Mad Men at EC Publications than I did from some cable tv show.
When the Senate subcommittee hearings into juvenile delinquency (led by 2 time VP candidate Estes Keffauver D-Tenn.) essentially outlawed Bill Gaines’ comics (*) he switched over to magazine publishing (Picto-Fiction and Mad became a magazine, aimed at the adult/college crowd with pieces written by Ernie Kovacs, Bob & Ray, and others). Harvey Kurtzman’s original model had been the college lampoons published (and even collected into reprint editions by mainstream publishers).
When Harvey was offered whatever he wanted to stay and helm the magazine EXCEPT 51% ownership, he left first to work for Hugh Hefner on a color glossy version of Mad called TRUMP (2 issues published, 3 completed). Then he self-published Humbug (since collected) and later Help (which published Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton before there was an “underground” comics movement).
I began reading Mad around age 9. Even the library had the pocketbook paperbacks. I didn’t buy the issues off the newsstand as regularly for awhile.
(*) even specific words in Gaines’ titles (like ‘Weird’) were prohibited by the “self-regulating” code, there was a code in effect before that EC was a member of... Ray, and others).
You're absolutely right!
Wow, what memories of growing up in the 50’s.
I was always at the newsstand (remember those?) to get the latest copies of Mad and Scientific American.
Ditto that.
Spy vs Spy
bumpsky
At the age of 17, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in July, 1943, as an aviation cadet and began his basic training in Blytheville, Arkansas. His cadet class was held in reserve, and he was assigned to Special Services, creating signs and service club murals, decorating planes and flight jackets, drawing comic strips for field newspapers and painting squadron insignias for orderly rooms.
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