One expects a book on Mad Magazine and written by Mad editors to be funny but Mad Cover to Cover does more that tickle the funny bone, it is also nostalgic. I'm not kidding.
This book that covers "48 years, 6 months & 3 Days of Mad Magazine Covers" goes back to the early 1950s (yep, if you can subtract, you can figure that out!) and, in those days I thought Mad was cheesy (now I think of it as kitsch). As I recall its covers with sort of pulpy and by 50s standards it seemed dreadfully tasteless.
Today it feels delightful. I matured and it did, too. I love the cover from 1999 that used a duplicate of a marbled composition notebook to lampoon school (it was a special issue for a special subject) and the cover featuring the Ninja Turtles seemed ancient but I remember when my then eight-year-old grandson told me the tortoises were "in" and demanded games and T-shirts, then--less than a year later pronounced them passé as his treasures were deposited in the Goodwill basket.
Passé. That's a word that Mad has somehow avoided. That's no mean feat in a world that changes as quickly as ours does. This book, as an example, has been thoroughly updated. It's slick. Very bright. Lots of clever touches like Alfred's portrait appearing upside-down near the page numbers and an inside fly leaf showing early renditions of Alfred in 1800s advertising. This page, by contrast, is matte and has that look of an aging photo album.
An up-to-date cover is also a portrait of "Al" done the recent popular collage style using tiny renditions of Mad Magazine covers. Inside, of course, are 400 covers ranging from cartoon covers from the 50s. One spoofs the glamour girl covers on "Life" and others parody more recent cultural phenomenon like TVs ever-tiresome Jeopardy.
This book, published by Watson-Guptill, will amuse. You'll reminisce as well. Fans, however, will find it well documented and the running commentary by Frank Jacobs amusing as only Mad comics are amusing.
Glossary
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