Mad
Entry updated 12 May 2025. Tagged: Publication.
US Magazine (1952-current) initially published by EC Comics, which debuted as a full-colour Comic book before shifting to a black-and-white magazine format in 1955 so that publisher William Gaines could evade the oversight of the newly created Comics Code Authority. It has always specialized in good-natured Satire aimed at a wide variety of targets. Since 2018 its publication has been irregular, and recent issues mostly contain reprinted material.
In its days as a comic book, Mad is most relevant to sf for its Parodies of several comic strip and comic book Superheroes, including Batman, Flash Gordon, Superman, Plastic Man, Tarzan and Wonder Woman. When first relaunched as a magazine, it emphasized text articles (such as pieces by well-known comedians like Steve Allen, Sid Caesar, Stan Freberg, Ernie Kovacs and Henry Morgan) as if to prove that it was not really a comic book, but it gradually came to be dominated once again by illustrated features. Noteworthy artists who were among its contributors include Sergio Aragonés, Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Al Feldstein, Frank Frazetta, Al Jaffee, James Warhola and Wally Wood. Some of its articles qualify as sf, such as a purported future textbook of American history that briefly discussed the mysteriously undocumented presidency of Thomas Dewey, a look at "Vending Machines of the Future," and explorations of the upcoming "Population Explosion" (see Overpopulation) and the resulting problem of the "Garbage Explosion." Other memorable items were a series of Antonio Prohias's "Spy vs. Spy" comics featuring two spies bedevilling each other, sometimes with high-tech devices, and there were splashes of surrealistic Humour, like a Don Martin comic in which a man goes to a hotel's front desk to complain about the establishment's numerous cockroaches and is greeted by the hotel manager – an enormous cockroach.
Yet the magazine became most renowned for its parodies of Cinema and Television programmes, including such sf films as The Birds (1963), Fantastic Voyage (1966), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Marooned (1969), the first four Planet of the Apes films (1968-1972) and A Clockwork Orange (1971); and the sf series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-1968), Lost in Space (1965-1968), Batman (1966-1968), Star Trek (1966-1969), Mission: Impossible (1966-1973; 1988-1990), and Land of the Giants (1968-1970). The magazine eventually produced so many parodies of Star Trek and its films and successor series that they could fill the pages of a special reprint issue, and the Star Wars franchise understandably attracted a considerable amount of attention as well. Covers of the magazine featured the magazine's iconic mascot, the grinning and gap-toothed Alfred E. Neuman, in various strange guises: a Vulcan, A Clockwork Orange's Alex, a Jedi knight, Yoda, Batman's Robin, Superman, and an ape from the Planet of the Apes films.
During its first two decades, Mad was widely influential: celebrities wrote letters that appeared in its letter column, and the magazine advertised and sold several related products, including a picture of Alfred E. Neuman, a Mad t-shirt and straitjacket, and a bust of Alfred E. Neuman, one still displayed on an sf critic's bookshelf; there were also several associated records and games. Numerous Mad paperbacks and special issues of the magazine were regularly published, mostly offering reprints, though they occasionally contained new material by Mad veterans. In one Superman comic book story, the Man of Steel pulls a prank on Lois Lane by pretending to reveal that he actually looks like Alfred E. Neuman. An off-Broadway musical based on the magazine, The Mad Show, debuted in 1966, with songs by Stephen Sondheim and others. The magazine also inspired several imitators, though only Cracked (1958-2007) endured for a significant period of time.
Yet the magazine became less prominent in the 1980s and thereafter, perhaps because there were now many comedians, television programs, and films emulating what was once its ground-breakingly anarchic sense of humour. The death of Gaines in 1992 was a major blow, and the magazine passed into other, corporate hands as it gradually declined. There was a comedy sketch series, Mad TV (1995-2009), an imitation of Saturday Night Live (1975- ) officially based on the magazine, though the show bore little resemblance to its contents, and an animated series Mad (2010-2013). There have also been associated Videogames and a short-lived magazine, Mad Kids (2005-2009), aimed at children. As one sign of its waning impact, when Donald Trump commented in 2020 that presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg looked like Alfred E. Neuman, Buttigieg (born in 1982) responded that he "didn't get the reference."
Besides the US original, versions of Mad – all now defunct – have appeared in 25 countries. The longest uninterrupted runs were in Australia 1980-2022, the UK 1959-1994, and Sweden 1960-1993 (where 1960s contributors included Sam J Lundwall), with a further Swedish run 1997-2002. [GW]
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