Mad #478 - EC Comics

I was in the supermarket today and I stopped by the magazine section. And even though Mad isn't written for my age anymore(as it should be!), I was fairly impressed by the contents of the issue I had bought a few months ago, so I thought why not see if they've been keeping it up?

I'm not sure I'll ever get used to Mad being in color, and it's the color I think that helps give the magazine its MTV-ish all-over-the-place look, but its probably nothing your average eleven-year couldn't handle. There's a few pages of random gags, some about politics, Rosise O'Donnell, and Taco Bell.

Then there's the main feature, a parody called "Lewd & Disorder It's P.U."(ahh, Mad), drawn the legendary Mort Drucker. It's like no time has elapsed...this is exactly the same kind of piece that could've appeared in the magazine back when I was a kid! There's something reassuring about that.

There is a series of one-page fake ads promoting the Army, which are, to me, astonishing in their direct assault on them and how they're hijacking young men into laying their life on the line. Considering the climate we're in, where in some circles it's almost taboo to say anything negative about the armed forces, these ads are almost courageous. Hell, it's sharper satire than anything on the entire last season of Saturday Night Live.

There's a feature about the National Spelling Bee, which has obvious jokes but is drawn by Paul Coker so it's cool, some jibes at Spider-Man 3, a story called "Monroe and...Cruelty Free" drawn by Tom Fowler(who has a perfect Mad style), and a fun piece called "The Average 5th Grader Knows...", drawn by Peter Bagge, which if I was was a fifth grader I would read and think "It's like Mad knows my life!"

There's a section by Sergio Aragones(of course!) about the art world that's genuinely funny, a Spy vs. Spy section by Peter Kuper that's pretty violent(even by their standards!), another parody called "Dud the Lousy Hunter"(they don't care whose toes they step on!"), and, of course, we end with a Mad Fold-In, still drawn by Al Jaffee. I think when Jaffee dies and gos to heaven, he'll be in an art studio where he can just draw stuff and not have to worry about the left and right sides matching up to make a third image.

So I pretty much come to the same conclusion I did last time--Mad is pretty good. They've got a nice selection of old guard talent mixed with new and/or underground guys, and if I was a little kid I'd be eating it up. Still not sure about the color and the advertising, but I guess that can't be helped. A thousand humor magazines have come and gone, and yet Mad is still here.