I did not realize that the first five MAD paperbacks were as distinctive as they are. These are the five tomes organized by original MAD man Harvey Kurtzman for Ballantine Books. Later after Kurtzman parted ways with MAD, the publisher William Gaines made a new arrangement with Signet to continue the line. That left Ballantine out in the cold, but later Kurtzman and the publisher made new attempts to create rivals to the successful MAD volumes. More on those efforts later.
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Matter of fact, my first introduction to the EC MAD era was the 1975 version of "The Brothers Mad": http://www.themadmuseum.com/the_brothers_mad.html I promptly ordered the other four volumes and was pleasantly surprised when they showed up with 50's style covers (1974 printing)... Good times.
ReplyDeleteWhile not my first, The Portable MAD was among my very early impressions of the grand magazine.
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The top paperback was the first time Alfred E Newman (here drawn by Will Elder) ever appeared on the cover of anything with the word "Mad" in it.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I knew, or if I did I forgot it. Thanks for the data.
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I bought the first three or four, along with a few others, sometime back in the '70s. Still got 'em too.
ReplyDeleteI got them when IBooks reprinted them several years ago. Nifty little volumes they are too.
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