Customer Reviews

Completely Mad: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

COMPLETELY MAD is a fairly thorough, albeit superficial, treatment of the MAD phenomenon. A biased perspective leaves much unsaid. Too much a valentine to Gaines and company. I would have enjoyed more material from the MAD comic book. Much of the information about the "usual gang of idiots" is extremely sketchy, bland and/or uninteresting, meaning that Ms. Reidelbach did not go very far beyond MAD's offices for information; i.e., a superficial and pretty lousy job of research. There was so much opportunity here!

This book is a must-read for fans of the magazine or comic books in general. It has lots of samples from older issues, pictures of every cover, and a complete history of not only Mad, but the factors that influenced it, and the early days of comic books. The chapter on the history of Alfred E. Neuman is excellent.

I have every issue of MAD ever published, and I can truthfully say that MAD has not been what it was since Warner's took it over in the early 70s. Remember the magazine satires like Neurotic magazine, Phony magazine, and Racketeer Illustrated magazine, or the ones of real magazines like Field & Scream, TV Guise, and Reader's Digress, or the newspaper satires like the Daily Square or the Daily Monopoly? I don't think MAD has run even one since Warner's took over. In fact, I don't think they've run anything satirizing the publishing industry either since. In fact, I knew for certain that Bill Gaines wasn't really running the show when back in the eighties they published their first "tie-in" satire, Grimlins, of a Warner movie which had just been released about a week earlier.
There's a lot this book doesn't tell. In fact, it basically "glosses over" what happened to Don Martin. You hear one story, that Bill Gaines refused to give him the copyrights on the items he had done for them over the years. This story doesn't make sense because there was no possible way he could have, because he didn't own them, and hadn't since he first sold the magazine in 1965. Warner's owns them, and it seems I remember reading somewhere that it is very difficult to get permission to use anything they own the copyright on. These are only a few examples; I could name others.
Years ago, there was a book called Decline and Fall, which told the story of the last years of the Saturday Evening Post. Maybe someday someone will publish such a book about what has really gone on behind the scenes at MAD since Warner's took over. Unfortunately, it will probably never happen because those who could tell the story (who are still alive), I've got a feeling are afraid of retributions if they do.

Somewhat disappointed by the format. I had thought it would have been devoted more to the magazine itself. A good history of the comic book development though. It would have been nice to see a complete index of the covers (dated of course). Overall the book does justice to the magazine and it's development. A must have if you are a fan.

Anyone out there seen "Mad" magazine lately? Last I heard it was an "asset" buried deep in Time Warner's DC Comics pile, running ads, its circulation approaching nil, its publisher trying to make it "relevant". This indifferently written history tries to sell Bill Gaines and his Usual Gang of Idiots as world changers, but someone beat them to the iconoclastic punch; they were Catskill Menckens with Yiddishisms. Yet the very earnest Maria Reidelbach may have a point: all that in-your-face attitude passed down through "Mad"-reading geniuses like George Lucas has become the manner of our times, and we suffer for it. To be sure it was uproarious in its day and its best can still inspire the belly laugh, and even now its appeal is understandable -- think 43-Man Squamish. But too much of it is just "The Producers", inspiring a shrug of the shoulders and "you had to be there"; the Kennedy family set to Gilbert and Sullivan and all those jokes about expense-accounting three-martini-drinking admen aren't very amusing anymore. We see that in its mascot's name, a pun based on a pointless in-joke (Alfred Newman? Why?) by Henry Morgan, himself a cautionary tale -- a patronizingly sardonic shock jock of the forties who ended his career with a million voiceovers. (MCI, anyone?) We see it especially in its records. "Fink Along with Mad"! Mitch Miller! Fun-NY! Or it would have been had it and an earlier companion not been excuses for drippy teen-rock ballads with hilarious words like "dandruff." Removed from the elaborate technological shtick of eight separate parallel grooves on one flexidisc "It's a Super-Spectacular Day" is as mirthful as a punch in the nose. That the magazine couldn't make the move to other media (notwithstanding "Saturday Night Live" -- er, "Mad TV") says "Mad" was almost untranslatable -- or worse, a cult hit before its time.

And yet "Mad" deserves a place in our hearts, and in our cultural history, for one big reason: its illustrators. Never before has any publication run so much brilliant penmanship, from enduring names: Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Don Martin, Antonio Prohías, Sergio Aragonés (he of the imperishable margin art), Al Jaffee, Jack Rickard, George Woodbridge, Bob Clarke, Paul Coker, Jr. and many others. If the jokes are stale the art is as fresh as ever. They cannot be blamed for the hack magazine editors who diluted them through overuse, especially Davis, who in the seventies seemed to pop up on "Time"'s cover every other week to tiresome effect. Probably the only way to do it justice is in some sort of expensive collector's reprint, hardly feasible with the zillions of paperback anthologies. Given the space limits the designer Alex Isley has produced a creditable tribute, a kind of high-end yearbook with lots of color splashes; this is truly a triumph of style over content. But if "Mad" is the earth-shattering blast of forward-looking truth insisted here it deserved better. The illustrators can forever speak for themselves.

A zany celebration of 40 years of MAD that should please ardent fans and attract browsers with its madcap illustrations that include reproductions of every cover since 1952.

Publisher Bill Gaines and editor Harvey Kurtzman produced the first issue of Mad magazine in 1956 and American satirical humor has never been the same since. Beginning with the comic book company founded by his father, Max, Gaines transformed his father's wholesome comics lines into EC Comics, the profitable publisher of classic 1950s' horror comics, and later introduced Mad and its mascot, the "What Me Worry" kid, Alfred E. Neuman. Although basically celebratory and uncritical, art historian Reidelbach's detailed history of Mad mentions recent criticisms of sexist and homophobic material in the magazine as well as Mad 's (and the comics industry's) contested policies on the ownership of commissioned artwork. Most amusing are descriptions of Gaines--who continues to run the profitable magazine as a "benevolent dictatorship"--and his idiosyncratic management theories ( Mad accepts no advertising, has never conducted a reader survey and does little merchandising). The book is chock-full of Mad material--the usual "trash," as Mad always describes its own contents--as well as information on the many freelance artists and writers who have worked for the magazine..

It seems grossly inappropriate to get so sentimental about something as UNsentimental as Mad, but that's how I feel. This is SUCH an entertaining book; a very well-told history of Mad spanning its first forty years (1952-1992). The excerpts are generous, many of them in colour on nice glossy paper. Ms. Reidelbach successfully conveys how the times influenced Mad and vice versa. Excellent, CLEAR writing. Maria, if you're reading this, please speak to Mad about updating your book? It's wonderful!

it's not the best mad book you can buy, but worth going to the library for it

This is a fairly good (though pandering) account of the history of Mad Magazine. At least the part that I read was. I didn't finish the book -- didn't even come close to finishing it -- because of one big problem: It reads like a textbook. It manages to make the subject of Mad Magazine boring. The account is written in such a dry manner that I just gave up on it and went back to reading my old MAD magazines. Forget all of the back-room dealings, squabbles, personnel changes, and business decisions. The only history I find I care about is the history of the art itself.

Some of Reidelbach's conclusions are a little bizarre (check out that strange correlation between Neuman and Renaissance Theater), and the book is biased toward Gaines and the crew. Otherwise, this is a fine history, laid out in an appropriately anarchic style. It's kind of ironic: when articles from the 50s are juxtaposed with those from more recent years, you realize with sadness that Mad's really lost a lot of its quality.