MAD Collections...

[MF TOON]

Does anyone own any of the compilation books listed on Amazon?

"Mad About... <insert title>"


I recently picked up the Complete Don Martin box set and have been buying all the Anniversary reprints of the original Mad Readers and I would like to pick up more stuff but want to know more about these collections and what the choice picks are...

I used to have an insanely large collection of MAD Magazines from the mid-60's through 80's with nearly complete issues of every single magazine from about '71-on. When I was 17 or so, my mom sold them all in a garage sale! I wish I still held onto those!

Anyways, I'm only interested in the "classic" stuff and preferably from the '50s-'70s and don't want to mistakenly buy a collection printing recent stuff. MAD was at the peak of their creativity and cutting satire in the '60s and I wish there existed more thorough collections than the cheap looking decades paperback books on Amazon. Can anyone vouch for any of these though?


Also, I've been meaning to pick up the first two hardcover "Archives Collections" which apparently reprint the first twelve issues of MAD across both volumes. Does anyone own these and what can you say about them; are they worth tracking down (I'm pretty sure the first set's out-of-print)?


The books I'm referring to btw, are stuff like The Bathroom Reader and MAD About The Movies and MAD About The 60s/70s/etc -- all that stuff...


Are there any real standouts? Are the reprints & pages of decent quality? Do they mix the old & new? Any info at all would be great...

Thanks!

[ohmahaaha]

Hey MFToon,

I have several of the books that you mention here:

MAD About the Movies
MAD About Superheroes (lots of fun with that one)
MAD About the 50s
MAD About the 60s
MAD About the 70s

Now my recommendations to you will be based on the fact that I liked what I liked because of remembering the stuff when I was growing up and originally read it when first published.

That being said, the Decades books: I highly recommend. My personal favorites were the 60s and 70s because much of that was familiar to me. The early to mid-70s was when I first became a fan of MAD, so I read the first run stuff of the 70s plus a healthy dose of the 60s stuff in their Super Specials of the same time period. You will probably like the 50s volume too; I was not as familiar with that material because it was originally published before my time, and not reprinted except for the color inserts they included with the aforementioned Super Specials - but those were the VERY early days of MAD. The 50s volume contains a lot of stuff from many of the same artists & writers that were there in the early color days, lots of guys from the EC days. I didn't get the 80s volume because that stuff came after my time of frequently picking it up (just like you, sounds like ...) - but I might just get it some day.

Oh, and the reprints are of very nice quality too by the way. I like the format of the Decades books - they all have nice introductions, followed by cover galleries, and then several pages of actual material, then move covers, then more material, etc. through the books.

MAD About the Movies is very enjoyable, but you should know that it is pretty much ALL movie satires, which means that it varies from the basic format of the magazine. But if you're a Mort Drucker and/or Angelo Torres fan, it's a must.

MAD About Superheroes is like the Movies in that it's mostly satires, but I think it had a few other various type articles besides just the TV/Movie Satires.

One more caveat: if you can get your hands on any of them to peruse PRIOR to purchase I recommend - there might be some double dips in there between the Movies/Superheroes and the Decades books - I can't remember off the top of my head.

You might also want to do what I did in addition, after whetting your appetite: track down some back issues of the Super Specials on eBay et al ... they can be had pretty reasonably, or at least comparable to the cost of the books.

The stuff is still potent, too by the way .... still funny, and much of it still applicable to today's times. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Good luck & enjoy! :cool:

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I own Mad About the 50's & 60's. I like those reprints because they contain the artwork of Wally Wood and Will Elder.

If you like the Mad comics from the 50's there was a great reprint in hardback published in the 80's that you might find on ebay. There's also a paperback edition (http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Calculated-Drive-You-Millennium/dp/B000IGE8D6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199046307&sr=8-4) that came out recently.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/38/Madhk1.jpg

There is also a CD-Rom that contains every issue of Mad (http://www.amazon.com/Totally-MAD-Magazine-1952-1998-CD-ROM/dp/B0006J0HVC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1199046169&sr=8-4)up to the late 90's.

[speedy fast]

You used to have nearly every issue from the 1960s through 1980s? Did you have the infamous issue 166, featuring a hand giving the middle finger on the cover (I've read that many news stands refused to sell that one)?

Anyway, the MAD books that I have include:
Mad About the Eighties (the first one I had gotten)
Mad About TV
Mad About the Seventies
Mad Cover To Cover
Spy Vs Spy: The Complete Casebook
Mad About Superheroes

I've never seen Mad About the Fifties or Mad About Movies in person (I also haven't even seen the cover for Mad About Movies). But what I have are good. I initially bought Mad About TV mainly for the introduction by Weird Al Yankovic and because I figured that it had a Sesame Street parody (based on the fact that some Sesame Street characters appeared on the cover, but it did have one of two MAD Sesame Street comics, the other being in Mad About the Seventies), and because I knew that Mad had a Newhart parody (Mad About the Eighties showed the cover of a 1984 issue which mentioned Newhart on the top of the cover) and hoped it would be in this book (which it was). But that book also has a lot of other good stuff as well.

My favorites are the eigthies, seventies, and TV issues. The superheroes andf Spy vs Spy books are also great. I wonder why there hasn't yet been a Mad About the Nineties book (Mad About the Eighties was made in 1999). Heck, this decade will be over in a few years.

[Bugsmer]

There is also a CD-Rom that contains every issue of Mad (http://www.amazon.com/Totally-MAD-Magazine-1952-1998-CD-ROM/dp/B0006J0HVC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1199046169&sr=8-4)up to the late 90's.

They've now released the entire run up to a point on DVD (http://www.amazon.com/Absolutely-MAD-Magazine-50%2B-Years/dp/B000HKMQ64/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1199066328&sr=8-1).

[Jack G.]

I recently picked up the Complete Don Martin box set...

Also, I've been meaning to pick up the first two hardcover "Archives Collections" which apparently reprint the first twelve issues of MAD across both volumes. Does anyone own these and what can you say about them; are they worth tracking down (I'm pretty sure the first set's out-of-print)?I just picked up the Complete (magazine stuff not books) Don Martin set, as well. That thing is heavy.
But I've been waiting for it to happen.:)

I've ordered the two Archive Collections, also. The first volume was still in stock at Amazon.
Can't say anthing about 'em other than I liked Mad when it was a comic book.
I only liked a few things from the magazine, like Martin.

They've now released the entire run up to a point on DVD (http://www.amazon.com/Absolutely-MAD-Magazine-50%2B-Years/dp/B000HKMQ64/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1199066328&sr=8-1).For the price, it's not bad. But I hate reading it onscreen. You're contantly scrolling around.

[MF TOON]

Thank you everyone, very much, for all the info -- especially ohmahaaha's incredibly detailed response!!

Just to confirm, the 'MAD About The Sixties/Seventies" books are not the same thing as the old Signet published paperback MAD Readers of the same name from their respective era, are they? I assume these are much more detailed anthology collections of the magazine publishings from the time? Same question in regards to "MAD About The Movies"...


Thanks again for all the help and feedback; I'm definitely going to try to track some of these down in person and flip through the pages as recommended.

SpeedyFast: I didn't have that middle finger issue, but I was a MAD fanatic in my preteen years! I used to collect everything MAD! Board games, paperbacks, magazines, records, etc. Btw, what did you think of the Spy Vs Spy book? Is it infact "complete" as advertised and are the reprints of high quality? This one sounds like it might be my next purchase. Some of the book compilations to be honest, look like they're designed quite ugly and don't appear to be as elaborate or as "classy" and "collectible" as some of the better comic book reprints we've seen from companies like Fantagraphics in the past few years. Is the Complete Spy Vs Spy more favorable in this regard?

Thanks again!!

[Mibbitmaker]

Actually, there is a Mad About the Nineties that came out a few years ago. It was done in "Manga-sized" form. Some of the other decades books were redone in that size, too.

My more active Mad fandom got underway in 1972 when, as I was deciding what comic book to buy, I glanced some Mad pocket-sized paperbacks and saw the Kurtzman/Elder Popeye parody ("Poopeye"). Being a huge Popeye fan from the classic animation - of course! - and the Charlton comics of the time, I had to get it. Around the same time my 5th grade homeroom teacher had Mad magazines in class. After the new Mad special was a "Santa Clause present" in 1973, I'd finally started buying the new issues early 1974. I was embarrassed by the middle finger cover and carefully hid it from my mom until I could take the cover off that issue.

A treasure trove of '60s and '70s back issues at a collectors' store for 50 cents apeice (Specials for $1) was discovered by me late in 1978, so it was really cool to have the older ones. By the early '90s, I started only buying some of the new issues, a practice I continue today. A Drucker article is (usually) a must, and excessive gross-outs negate a purchase.

I have the '50s-'70s Decade books and the TV and movie ones. The Movies one: on the (possible) downside, they only include satires of movies put out by parent company Warner Bros, so theres no slight ammount of corporate exploitation involved. On the plus side, that also means an 8-page satiric history of the studio's output with bits from old movies (parodied) introduced by Bugs and Daffy (!!!), which is illustrated by Mort Drucker.

I also have those hardcover reprints of the comic book Mad. They are excellent and in nice condition, though also kind of big and heavy, especially collectively.

[Jack G.]

Just to confirm, the 'MAD About The Sixties/Seventies" books are not the same thing as the old Signet published paperback MAD Readers of the same name from their respective era, are they? I assume these are much more detailed anthology collections of the magazine publishings from the time? Same question in regards to "MAD About The Movies"...Right, The Mad About... books are not the same as the paperbacks.
I don't think you'd call them more detailed- they're more like an overview of the particular subject.
I believe all of them are printed larger than the old paperbacks.

Also, I just saw a Mad collection of all the Star Wars movies.
George Lucas wrote the forward. He said he had to restrain his lawyers!

I also have those hardcover reprints of the comic book Mad. They are excellent and in nice condition, though also kind of big and heavy, especially collectively.Are you talking about the EC releases or the ones Russ Cochran put out some years back (both in color and b&w)?

[speedy fast]

SpeedyFast: Btw, what did you think of the Spy Vs Spy book? Is it infact "complete" as advertised and are the reprints of high quality? This one sounds like it might be my next purchase. Some of the book compilations to be honest, look like they're designed quite ugly and don't appear to be as elaborate or as "classy" and "collectible" as some of the better comic book reprints we've seen from companies like Fantagraphics in the past few years. Is the Complete Spy Vs Spy more favorable in this regard?

I don't think it has every Spy vs Spy comic that was made before the books release, but the back of the book does say that it includes every comic from the original creator of Spy vs Spy, as well as all of his non-Spy vs Spy comics from Mad.

[Bugsmer]

For the price, it's not bad. But I hate reading it onscreen. You're contantly scrolling around.

That's true. I own a copy of Totally Mad, and they have a feature that allows you to fold the pages in the back (one of them folds differently, however). I'm not sure if you can do this on the DVD. Totally Mad is also misssing a few pages that you can get online at Doug Gifford's site. These were excluded for legal reasons. I don't know if they're included on the DVD. I don't know how good the quality of the scans are on the DVD either, but the Totally Mad ones could have been better. Nevertheless, you get a bonus of small audio and video clips on the Totally Mad that are apparently absent from the DVD version.

[Mibbitmaker]

Are you talking about the EC releases or the ones Russ Cochran put out some years back (both in color and b&w)?

The Russ Cochran ones. Mine are in color (though I got the first Cochran Panic collection, and that turned out to be black & white. I later found the 1st couple softcover EC collections in color).

There was also a Mad About... on comic strips. On the plus side: it includes the long-lost color "comic section" parody that appeared in an early-'60s Mad Special. On the minus side: there are alot of later articles mixed with a few earlier ones. I'm largely partial to (besides the comic book Mad comic strip parodies, some included) the '50s-'60s comic strip satires. I'd gotten a Mad Special entirely comics-themed during the early '80s, and that does a better job compiling the really classic comics articles for my tastes.

[ohmahaaha]

Btw, what did you think of the Spy Vs Spy book? Is it infact "complete" as advertised and are the reprints of high quality? This one sounds like it might be my next purchase. Some of the book compilations to be honest, look like they're designed quite ugly and don't appear to be as elaborate or as "classy" and "collectible" as some of the better comic book reprints we've seen from companies like Fantagraphics in the past few years. Is the Complete Spy Vs Spy more favorable in this regard?

Thanks again!!
MF Toon ... my apologies, I was remiss in that I failed to mention that I also have the "Spy vs. Spy Complete Casebook," and you know what ... I have to say that of all of them, I was somewhat disappointed. My reason is the presentation: while I think that the reprints were mostly high quality, I was put off by the fact that they would reprint several of the cartoons as full pages, and then after so many of the full page ones, every once in a while you'd come to a page or two where they shrunk them down so that they had 4 on 1 page, instead of the full page reprint.

I have to say that kind of ticked me off, because as you know there's a lot going on in some of the "Spy vs. Spy" cartoons and being shrunk down made it a lot tougher (for me, anyway) to see what's going on. Eyesight not withstanding, I think we could have had a volume that reprinted EVERYTHING full page, don't you? I did enjoy seeing the complete run (by Prohias, not complete by the people that did it after he left) ... plus they included other non-Spy vs. Spy stuff from Mad by Prohias.

Anyway, that's what's up with the Spy vs. Spy book. If you buy it, I recommend buying a magnifying glass with it!

[Jack G.]

The Russ Cochran ones. Mine are in color (though I got the first Cochran Panic collection, and that turned out to be black & white. I later found the 1st couple softcover EC collections in color).Ages ago, I ordered the Russ Cohran ones and got a reply back that they were mostly out of print.
So I'm glad their being put out again- though the gap between Mad vol. 1 2002 and vol. 2 2007 was quite a long time.

I never saw Panic. How do you rate it copared what was coming out of Mad at the time?
Who were the artists?

That's true. I own a copy of Totally Mad, and they have a feature that allows you to fold the pages in the back (one of them folds differently, however). I'm not sure if you can do this on the DVD.Yeah, you can do the fold-ins. There are some video clips of the Mad offices or something of that nature.

[Bobby Bickert]

I never saw Panic. How do you rate it copared what was coming out of Mad at the time?
Who were the artists?

The usual artists were Bill Elder, Jack Davis, Woody, and Joe Orlando. Jack Kamen did the "Grim Fairy Tale" in the first issue.

I think Al Feldstein wrote the first 6 issues and the final one; Jack Mendelson wrote the rest.

I haven't read every story, but I would say the humor was darker in most of the stories in the first few issues (for example, a game show contestant blows his brains out in "Strike It Richly!" in #3) before it became "the only authorized imitation of MAD". (The comic strip satires didn't start until #3.) Probably not as brilliant as Kurtzman's MAD, but you do get to see Elder's take on Dick Tracy, Lil' Abner, Alley Oop, Joe Palooka, and other strips that probably wouldn't have happened if PANIC hadn't been created. (I particularly enjoyed the Popeye cameos in 3 of them.)

Also, the final issues were subject to the Comics Code. Among other things, Woody had to draw his women with smaller breasts.

[larriva9/11]

All in all, Potrzebie

[Jack G.]

The usual artists were Bill Elder, Jack Davis, Woody, and Joe Orlando. Jack Kamen did the "Grim Fairy Tale" in the first issue.

I think Al Feldstein wrote the first 6 issues and the final one; Jack Mendelson wrote the rest.

I haven't read every story, but I would say the humor was darker in most of the stories in the first few issues (for example, a game show contestant blows his brains out in "Strike It Richly!" in #3)I knew Feldstein was involved.

I read that the parody of A Visit from Saint Nicholas was banned in Boston.
Another story really upset the New York Police department (I think).
Sounds like I might of liked Panic with Chickenfat Elder, Davis, and Wood doing art.

[Bobby Bickert]

I think Al Feldstein did most of the PANIC cover art, though after #5 they were just about all "gimmick" covers like MAD (cereal box, eye test chart, even a completely blank cover). Jack Davis did the final cover, and I think Basil Wolverton did #4.

The 32-page comic reprints of all 12 issues of PANIC from the late 1990's should still be available as back issues from Russ Cochran/Gemstone. And I'm sure they'll eventually be reprinted as part of the new "EC Archives" collections.

[speedy fast]

I was at a bookstore today, and saw that there is a second Spy vs Spy book, called Spy vs Spy 2. I forget what the subtitle was (it was "the..." something "and Dagger Files"). I didn't buy it, but I looked through it, and features Spy vs Spy comics from after the first bookw as made. I looked through the introduction, and it points out that if you want to see the comics from the orgiinal creator you'd have to shell out more money to by "The Complete Casebook". But it includes Spy vs Spy Jr comics (which appear in Mad Kids, a version of the magazine for kids, though I don't know why there needed to be a Mad magazine for kids), and also the short-lived newspaper comic strips.