This post wasn’t originally supposed to be a postmortem on Mad. In fact, I’d originally planned to run it on July 1st — which, if I’d followed through, would have seen it beat the news of Mad‘s impending demise (at least as a purveyor of new material) by a couple of days. That would have made for a timely, even prescient post, rather than one that may seem like it’s bringing up the rear, commentary-wise — and at some distance, at that. Was I planning to blog about an earlier issue, then? Actually, no. While I haven’t been able to find actual on-sale dates for Mad during this era, a perusal of the magazine’s contents over a period of months indicates that, like a lot of other periodicals (including most “standard” comic books), its actual date of publication generally preceded its cover date by a couple of months. So I thought I’d post about the September-dated issue in July, and since I was just guessing, anyway, why not publish the post at the beginning of the month?
But then, I looked at all the other fifty-year-old comics I wanted to blog about in July — there ended up being eight of them — and realized something was going to have to give. And since I really didn’t know when Mad #129 had come out, what did it matter if I pushed its post back to September? So, I set my schedule, and made my plans — and then July 3rd brought its sad news.....
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Enuff with the hand-wringing exordium AWREDDY.
No -- Mad's not Pilgrim's Progress or even Classic Comics. But we who grew up with the self-ridiculing jewrag can enjoy the FERSHLUGGINER tour!
Even as a 12-year-old I really didn't like Mad's ridiculing of conservatives (e.g. the finale of its Easy Rider parody). But this 2018 page brings back the sheer fun it often offered and the heady feel of boomer youth before puters, open borders, terr'ism, covidiocy, Algore, Pelousy, ad nauseam.
The page's very telented creator wonders out loud (as we all did) why he eventually tired of Mad. In jovio-fraternal response I've just added a comment at bottom (doubt it shows) invoking this unique issue of Nat Lamp:
https://kittysneezes.com/what-me-funny-the-national-lampoon-mad-parody- 577/
Anybody need any help enlarging things on screen? Couldn't be simpler -- in Win7, the 3 vertical dots in upper right of screen will guide you. Incidentally, Mr. Stewart's right -- All Jaffee IS STILL LIVING at (now) age 101! NN
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