MAD Magazine
April 6th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
I was saddened to hear of the passing of MAD‘s “Poet Laureate”, longtime writer Frank Jacobs yesterday. He was 91. Frank is best known for his song parodies in MAD AKA “Sing to the Tune of…”, which became not just a trademark element of MAD’s repertoire of recurring features, but the focus of its most famous legal battle. Berlin v. E.C. Publications, Inc., 329 F.2d 541 (2d Cir. 1964), became a landmark case of copyright law. Irving Berlin (and a bunch of music publishers) sued MAD over the song parodies that were part of a paperback book entitled More Trash from Mad No. 4, claiming copyright infringement of the original… READ MORE
April 5th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
We continue our inane and pointless wandering through my appearances in MAD Magazine with my 20th contribution, a return to the world of sports with “MAD‘S Proposed Rule Changes for the Upcoming NASCAR Season”, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin and appearing in MAD #427, March 2003. This piece was unique in that I was told to draw a caricature of someone in it that was part of an advertising/promotional campaign. Back in 2002 DC/Warner Bros/MAD started a promotional campaign with the South Beach Beverage Co. aka “SoBe”. SoBe was producing a new chocolate flavored energy drink called “Love Bus Brew”, and for some… READ MORE
April 4th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Q: Has anyone ever drawn Alfred E Neuman from an angle that was NOT “straight on”? I know he has been drawn from the back of his head (but that angle is also sort of “straight on”). Just wondering if you know of any instance of an artist have tried him at an angle? A: Yes, Alfred has on occasion been drawn in a 3/4 view or even in profile, but VERY seldom, and not much after 1960 or so. When I first started with MAD, I was told that any depictions I might do of Alfred should be based solidly on the Mingo original. Artists are… READ MORE
March 30th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It was announced last week that toy company Funko is making an Alfred E. Neuman version of their popular “Pop” toy figures. This is being greeting mostly with disdain from MAD fans because the figure is not “Alfred-like” enough. The face is total symmetrical, the eyes are on the same horizontal, etc. It’s missing many of the trademark elements of Alfred E Neuman. This is to be expected, however. The entire line of Funko Pop figures do exactly what they do with this Alfred doll. They totally homogenize the look of whoever or whatever character they are supposed to be into the same Pop figure… READ MORE
March 29th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
We continue our relentless chronological crawl through my MAD work with a look at my 19th job for the magazine, a TV parody of the show “Scrubs”, written by MAD Senior Editor Charlie Kadau, and appearing in MAD #426, Feb 2003. This was the only piece I ever worked on with Charlie, who wrote a number of TV parodies among his many other writing credits for the magazine, on top of being an editor for a measly 35 years or so. There are a number of doctor cameos in the splash but also two “insider” ones. The guy with the curly red hair putting on the rubber glove by Dr.… READ MORE
March 22nd, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
We continue the agonizingly slow chronological crawl through my MAD work with a look at my 18th job for the magazine, a movie parody of the second “Harry Potter” film, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin. that appeared in MAD #424, Dec 2002. I remember this job being a pretty big deal for me, because we in the Richmond household were big fans of the Harry Potter books. We used to read them to the kids when we put them to bed each night, and then we’d go downstairs and keep reading them. So, when I got the call to do this movie spoof… READ MORE
March 18th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
MAD collector Tim Johnson has an annual (sometimes more than annual) auction of MAD collectibles that always features very cool and sometimes extremely rare MAD junk. Tim may be a world class MAD collector but this year his auction brochure cover is as classless as it gets. This is a spoof of a famous Frank Zappa poster image, done at Tim’s suggestion. If you are interested in Tim’s auction you can check it out here. It’s done via email and at the end telephone, so no eBay involved. READ MORE
March 15th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
We continue our Monday MADness chronological crawl through my work for MAD with a look at appearance number 17 for me in the magazine. This was a feature MAD occasionally did called “A MAD Peek Behind the Scenes on the set of…” which was a sort of parody of whatever show or movie was the subject. I ended up doing a few of these over the years, this being the first. It was written by the late, great John Caldwell and appeared in MAD #422, Oct 2002. It was the only time I ever did the art for a fully Caldwell written piece, although he was one of… READ MORE