Showing posts with label Mad Magazine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mad Magazine. Show all posts

Sunday, April 21, 2024

Original Book Cover Art: Don Martin Carries On

The original 1973 book cover art for Don Martin Carries On was sold on April 17 at Heritage Auctions. The illustration speaks for itself.


Don Martin
Heritage Auctions listing ended April 17, 2024

Apparently, memories of Mad magazine inspired Heritage's copy writer to produce some truly awful prose:
Don Martin
Heritage Auctions item description
"This lampshaded lunatic is attempting to Lambada, but instead starts 'Poppin' and Lockin'.'" What?


 



I also have a few eBay images of the paperback for the scholars among you:







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Sunday, March 12, 2023

Sergio Aragonés: An Adolph S. Ochs First Day Cover

Adolph S. Ochs was the publisher of The New York Times from 1896 to 1935, a career which earned him a U.S. commemorative stamp issue in 1976. Mad magazine cartoonist Sergio Aragonés, asked to embellish a first day cover, showed that he too knows a bit about publishers.


Sergio Aragonés
eBay listing accessed March 12, 2023


Sergio Aragonés
eBay item description






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Saturday, March 11, 2023

Sergio Aragonés: A California Gold Centennial First Day Cover

Mad magazine's Marginal Thinking Department cartoonist Sergio Aragonés has renewed my faith in the art of the signed first day cover. A cacheted cover of the California Gold Centennial commemorative issue of 1948—you'd think they could have waited a year—was signed and drawn upon by him in 1991, presumably at a convention. He has drawn the magazine's ageless mascot Alfred E. Neuman in a manner fitting to both the stamp and the character in the "What Me Worry?" shirt.


Sergio Aragonés
eBay listing accessed March 11, 2023

Sergio Aragonés
eBay item description









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Friday, March 10, 2023

Sergio Aragonés: A George M. Cohan First Day Cover

I have frequently expressed my perplexity at the phenomenon of first day covers signed by celebrities, particularly when the stamp and the signer have nothing to do with each other. Every now and then, though, something comes along that makes my day and it's usually because of the creativity of a cartoonist.


In 1990, when Mad's Sergio Aragonés was in all likelihood, attending a convention, he was asked, it would seem, to sign the 1978 first day cover commemorating the George M. Cohan centennial. He knew what to do with it.


Sergio Aragonés
eBay listing accessed March 10, 2023

Sergio Aragonés
eBay item description




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Saturday, July 2, 2022

Spy vs. Spy: Antonio Prohias et al.

If one were fortunate enough to obtain an original "layout for a published project" (so we are told) illustrated by Mad's Antonio Prohias of an agitated White Spy sitting in a movie theater, should one have other artists and luminaries of the magazine also sign—and draw on—the page? Perhaps not, but it's hard to argue that a "jam page" fitting this description didn't turn out extremely well. Sergio Aragonés put his contribution (including a sketch of Alfred E. Neuman) on the projected screen. Kelly Freas, Marie Severin, and Peter Kuper added other faces: respectively, of Freas himself, of William M. Gaines, and of one of the spies. That's quite a coup: having spies drawn by both Prohias and Kuper, his successor, on the same page. As a bonus, there are signatures by Jack Davis, Will Elder, Mort Drucker, Kyle Baker, Al Feldstein, Angelo Torres, Annie M. Gaines, Al Jaffee, and Paul Peter Porges. Is it any wonder the eBay seller is asking $1,600 for this? 






The usual gang of idiots
eBay listing accessed July 1, 2022

The usual gang of idiots
eBay item description






Note:  I'd love to hear from anyone who can identify the published source of this Spy vs. Spy layout drawing.



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Thursday, June 30, 2022

Driving in South Dakota: Frank Modell and Don Martin

Frank Modell's cartoon for The New Yorker of November 25, 1950 was a good one, strong enough to be included a quarter century later in The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975. It can therefore be said to have been somewhat on the radar in the mid-to-late 1970s.

Frank Modell
The New Yorker, November 25, 1950, page 45


Modell may have concluded that Teddy Roosevelt was the funniest President on Mount Rushmore. His decision to mess with TR's facial expression is an interesting one, having the great sculpted head grimacing in reaction to his decapitation and displacement. Compare that with the couple in the car, who appear too stunned even to react.


Don Martin, whether he knew of Modell's cartoon or not, conceived a similar gag for Mad #196 dated January 1978. His challenge with Late One Afternoon in South Dakota is to decide what sort of multi-panel setup will deliver the best payoff. He decides, of all things, on some madcap signage play. 
Don Martin
Original art
Mad #196, January 1978, page 25



So, we are asked to believe that on a mountainside road with no guard rail—at least Modell does give us a guardrail—a highway department vehicle comes screeching to a halt before a convertible that is possibly already braked. The highway worker does not close the road in response to a critically unsafe condition, but instead changes the sign to read something utterly preposterous that we don't really understand until the final panel. This is a Don Martin cartoon, so in reality we probably won't question any of this nonsense. Note how Martin has the driver—and the driver's hat—do the reacting, not the stately Lincoln head. The original art went unsold at Swann Galleries earlier this month for reasons that probably have nothing to do with the missing guard rail.
Don Martin
Full page original art
Mad #196, January 1978, page 25

Don Martin
Swann Galleries Sale 2608, Lot 191, June 9, 2022



I'm certainly not going to declare a winner here, although very likely you can infer my own preference. My guess is that fans of The New Yorker will prefer Modell's cartoon, and that fans of Mad will prefer Martin's, and all's right on Mount Rushmore.

Spot drawing by Thomas Eastwood and cartoon by Frank Modell

Art by Dave—Ahem! David—Berg and Don Martin with marginalia by Sergio Aragonés







Thomas Eastwood



Note:  Who then is the funnier president, Abe Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt? 



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Thursday, October 21, 2021

Peter Kuper's Spy vs. Spy: The Top Secret Files!—Signed

Congratulations to cartoonist Peter Kuper, the 2021 recipient of the Reuben Award for the category of Magazine/Newspaper Illustration. Among his many accomplishments, Kuper has been drawing the comic strip Spy vs. Spy for Mad magazine since 1997. The series was originally created by expatriate Cuban cartoonist Antonio Prohías and first appeared in Mad #60 dated January 1961. Spy vs. Spy has been a perennial feature of Mad since the days of the Cold War. In his current interview on the Cartoon Pad podcast, Kuper reveals that he has completed what he expects is the final new strip of the decades-long run. A signed book and souvenir drawing of the two spies back to back are herein archived as they appeared not all that long ago on eBay.

 
Peter Kuper
eBay listing ended October 15, 2021




Peter Kuper
eBay item description








Best Newspaper/Magazine Illustration 2021 Reuben Awards










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Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Paul H. Elliott-Smith's Copy of A Golden Trashery of MAD

Under what circumstances were Paul H. R. M. Elliott-Smith's copy of A Golden Trashery of MAD (1960) signed in 1981 by publisher William M. Gaines, Al Feldstein, Nick Meglin, and a clutch of "the usual gang of idiots?" Was this hard-to-find book brought to a signing event or simply to the New York offices of MAD? Elliott-Smith (1919-1999) was a marketing and economics consultant, according to the sales listings below. He would have been around 62 in 1981, certainly not the typical age for a MAD fanboy. But at that age he could well have been retiring from whatever sort of consulting he did for EC, and the drawing by Paul Peter Porges on the lower right has a "Good-By'" that suggests this may have been the case. In this context, the book might have been a presentation copy prepared in advance and given to Elliott-Smith, which would explain why Gaines wrote "Free Sample!" The unique book is being offered for $1,000 on AbeBooks, or you can have it for just $900 on eBay. Hey, it's your money.

A Golden Trashery of MAD
New York: Crown, 1960

Cover by Norman Mingo

Twelve signatures, eight sketches

George Woodbridge

Jack Rickard takes the real estate under the dust jacket flap and makes the most elaborate drawing.

Inscribed "Free Sample!
Bill Gaines"

Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, Al Feldstein

Lou Silverstone, Dick DeBartolo, Paul Peter Porges


Sergio Aragonés

Bob Clarke, Nick Meglin

Introduction by Sid Caesar

A Golden Trashery of MAD
eBay Listing Retrieved October 16, 2018




A Golden Trashery of MAD
AbeBooks Listing Retrieved October 16, 2018






Note:  It should come as no surprise that this is the first and only copy of A Golden Trashery of MAD to appear on this blog. I am, of course, open to showing other MAD books here, particularly if they have interesting inscriptions or original drawings.

Today I broke with my internalized style book and capitalized all three letters of MAD even though I know better. For some reason it felt right. Shouldn't I stick with the lower-key Mad?



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