Saturday Evening Pest!

Last weekend The Lovely Anna and I travelled to Stockbridge, MA for the opening of “What Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine”, an exhibit of original art from the pages of MAD spanning the magazine’s entire 72 year history hanging at the Norman Rockwell Museum.

I’ve been to a few exhibits of MAD art, and while they have all been good this one is by far the most comprehensive and complete. Usually these exhibits concentrate on certain eras of MAD, often the early Harvey Kurtzman comic book era or the Al Feldstein years where the format of the magazine is most familiar to the world in general. The 60’s and 70’s, when MAD was at its peak of popularity and influence is more often than not the focus of those shows. While longtime MAD heavyweights like Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Will Elder, Mort Drucker, Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragones, Dave Berg, Don Martin. Angelo Torres, Antonio Prohias, George Woodbridge, etc, etc are well deserving of their status as legends, members of the Usual Gang of Idiots from the 80’s onward made great contributions to the magazine as well. It was wonderful to see the work of artists like Rick Tulka, John Caldwell, Ray Alma, Teresa Burns Parkhurst, Hermann Mejia, and many others get some of the spotlight and hang next to the Titians.

After over seven decades, the amount of art that has appeared between the covers is beyond enormous, so picking what to include was no doubt a herculean task. Curators Steve Brodner and Stephanie Plunkett were very wise to enlist former MAD artist and art director Sam Viviano as lead advisor for the show. Sam is a wealth of MAD history and comes from an insider perspective both as a freelancer and a staff member. I guarantee you Sam championed the inclusion of many artists that might get passed over in less comprehensive shows. That’s part of what made this exhibit something special.

Of course seeing the original art of so many true iconic MAD features from over the years was a highlight. Only at the Norman Rockwell Museum will you get to see Richard William‘s brilliant spoof of Rockwell’s famous self portrait done for the cover of the book MAD ART hanging right next to the Rockwell original!

Seeing the original Woodbridge art from “43 Man Squamish”, Frank Frazetta‘s “Tarzan” back page gag feature, panels from Drucker’s “The Oddfather’ and “Saturday Night Feeble”, Davis’s “Hah, Noon!” and so many other stone cold classics were mind boggling.

I have two pieces in the show. Desmond Devlin wrote them both and he was there so that’s the two of us in front of the pieces. It’s thrilling and humbling at the same time to have my work hanging up amid so many pieces of cartooning genius, not to mention the work of Norman Rockwell! Truly a career highlight.

One might think “why would the Norman Rockwell Museum host an exhibit of MAD Magazine art? Of course MAD spoofed several of Rockwell’s most famous paintings over the years, but there is another lesser known reason.

Back in 1964, MAD contacted Rockwell to commission him to paint the “definitive” portrait of Alfred E. Neuman for them. Norman Mingo had done Alfred’s official portrait for the cover of MAD #30, but the staff felt that getting Rockwell to do it would be a coup for the magazine and a defining moment for the cover boy that was rapidly taking the world by storm. After some back and forth between Rockwell, Feldstein and MAD art director John Putnam, the project was looking like a certainty when Rockwell ultimately decided to back out of the job. He was afraid it would not work out and that trying to do a realistic portrait of Alfred would become a “complete mess”. Letters to and from Rockwell and MAD are on display in a case at the show. Rockwell came very close to being one of the Usual Gang of Idiots!

Here’s some pics from the show. There was so much, I can’t possibly share it all.

Don Martin

Jack Davis

Will Elder

George Woodbridge

Sam Viviano did this for a recent issue, telling the story of one of the MAD trips.

One of Tom Bunk’s insane pieces

Mort Drucker

More than a few of the Usual Gang of Idiots were there, writers and staffers as well as artists. Those with art hanging were all asked to say a few words about our pieces and about MAD…

Teresa Burns Parkhurst

James Warhola

Richard Williams

Ray Alma

Scott Bricher

Sam Viviano

The show hangs through October 27th. It’s more than worth a trip to Massachusetts to see it.