The Missink Link

Saturday Visit. 

Bill and Penny creator Harry Haenigsen had a whole seperate career (and a different style) as a daily saterist before he settled down as one of the stylistically dullest cartoonists of his generation. I showed some of his cartoons from the thirtees earlier, which were published under the title New and Views. Ever day was a new cartoon, with a different (mostly satyrical) subject. Some of the ways he saterizes them can be considered precursers to later Mad parodies. In my experience, this body of work even represents even the most Mad-like 'articles' I have ever seen anywhere. Everyone always mentions the comedy magazines of the thirties (like Hoohah) as an inspiration for Mad, but other then a large amount of ad parodies using photo's I never found format that directly predates either Kurtzman or Feldstein's choices. Haenigsen on the other hand, used a lot of 'statement and samples' gags, did stuff like 'what does the wallet of so and so look like' and more. A missing link to the Mad type of humor, in my opinion.

Well, looking back at this series, I found that he was doing them longer than I would have though, most of which ws before he started using the title News and Views. Here are some of the earliest I could find, from the Milwaukee Journal in 1925! They are harder to find, because there is no title and they are not on a set page, so it means going to papers page by page. But the humor and the style are all there, as well. 

Now I have to go and clip all twelve year. You can follow the link for more of News and Views.

The Precursors Of Mad, part one

Monday Cartoon Day.

Apart from a prolific writer of many humor and satire titles, cartoons and his own newspaper strip Jacky's Diary, Jack Mendelsohn also was a pretty good cartoonist. Most of his work in that field he did in the late forties and early fifties, much of it for Dell's 1000 Jokes magazine. Since I am about to sell my collection of those magazines, I checked to see what I had not yet shared with you and apart from a couple of random cartoons here and there, I found quite a few that seemed unknown. What makes these cartoons so special is that fact that Jack Mendelsohn seems to have been doing Mad type humor long before he became a Mad writer. Now, if we talk about Mad, we have of course to treat it as two separate magazines. There is the comic book Mad, created by Harvey Kurtzman, which had a successful run of 23 issues and influenced a lot of artists and humorists. After that, Harvey Kurtzman himself did five issues of the magazine version of Mad, which had a look and content all of their own. In fact, under Kurtzman it was more of a magazine parody than it would ever be after he left. With #29, Al Feldstein became the main editor and he proceeded pretty quickly in turning MAd into the magazine most of us know - and a huge succes. The comic book Mad had a different sort of humor. All of it was channeled into the form of comic book stories, magnificently executed by Wallace Wood, Jack Davis and Bill Elder. The Feldstein magazine had funny articles, illustrated by America's Maddest artists. Under Feldstein many funny formats were introduced and usually turned into regular series. It is those types of humor (often in the 'statement and samples'-format) that we see with Jack Mendelsohn's contributions to 1000 Jokes in the late forties. Many writers have said that Feldstein's Mad was influenced by the humor magazines of the thirties. And indeed, there is a similarity to the photo illustrated ad spoofs, for instance. But the articles Jack Mendelsohn did seem a much more direct link. Makes you wonder why or how Mendelsohn (who had written for Feldsteins official Mad imitation Panic) wasn't included in the first few years of Feldstein's Mad magazine.

By the way, Mendelsohn wasn't the only one doing these sort of Mad precursors articles in 1000 Jokes. Chas. Straus did quite a few of them as well, including spreads of scenes with lots of action in it. Mort Walker, who was the editor of 1000 Jokes in 1949/50 and included a lot of that sort of articles in his issues (although the already appeared before he was an editor as well), drew similar stuff when he was the editor of The Missouri Show Me, but none for 1000 Jokes.

All of these pages are not included in my book on Mad magazine imitations, because they fell outside of the purview of Behaving Madly and frankly, I needed the space for the other articles. But if you like this sort of thing, check out the book using the link to your right. It will come out shortly and I am very proud of it.

Mad Precursing

Sunday Jaffee Jamboree

Shortly before doing teh Squat Car Squad for Stan Lee, Al Jaffee contributed another very Madlike series to Quality's Military Comics. It was not the first funny series in that title. Dave Berg was already continuing he Blakhawk spoof Death Patrol that wa started by Jack Cole. But Jaffee's Superman satire was even more in the style that Harvey Kurtzman and Bil Elder would later make such a succes at Mad.

Sam the Man

My Great Big American Trip Day 9.

On my final day I took the train into New York early, so I could go to the Mad offices on 1700 Broadway. I was met by art edtor Sam Viviano, who continued the Mad tradition of almost never telling the truth. After learning that the Dutch edition of Mad had stopped after six issue, he introduced me to everyone as 'the editor of the longstanding Dutch edition of Mad'. I had the first five issues of Mad with me. "Why not six?" he asked. I said I must ahve forgotten the last one. He said: "Well, you can take these back as well, I don't do imcomplete series". We leaved through the Dutch edition and he complemented me on the quality of our packages. I think he meant the magazine.

My favorite magazine mascot with Alfred E. Neuman.

Ever since moving to 1700 Broadway, all artists visiting have contributed a sketch to the Wall of Shame. In marker inker, so they can remove you with the flick of a sleave.

Of course Al Jaffe is there as well, with a Stupid Question. In fact he had been there a couple of days before, which was shown in the Mad blog (http://www.madmagazine.com/blog).

Also on the wall is my favoite new Mad artist, the Australian Anton Emdin. He has a Twilight parody in the latest issue.

The Parody To End All Parodies

Tuesday Comic Strip Day.

Bill Elder's comic strip imitations from the early days of Mad are legendary. After he left (with Harvey Kurtzman), his spot was taken by Walace Wood, who was just as good at satiricly nailing newspaper and comic strip styles. He did a lot of What If Comic Strip cahracters type of feautures, most of which have been reprinted here and there. What I have not seen yet (though there might be one somewhere I missed) is a reprint of Walace Wood (and friend's) masterpiece Puck Sunday Section parody, which wa done for Worst From Mad #4. Why this is not the single most expensive Mad item around, I do not know. I have had a cope for over twenty years now and although it has been torn a bit along the way, I still relish it. So hee it is in full, if not completely in the right order. I am providing some comments along the way, identifying artists ans such...


Walace Wood's parody of Blondie starts of the section and it's a masterpiece. What Wood does with the dogs is just great. It seems as if he was born to draw this. My copy is torn, as I said. There may be another, completer scan flying around the web, if you are into such a thing.


Again, Walace Wood shows how it's done.


This parody is so spot on, that I can't see who did it.


Walace Wood Chanelling Walt Kelly. As with most of these, the text isn't bad either.


Not Wood. I am pretty sure this is by Joe Orlando.


This could be by Wood or by Bob Clarke, who both did a great Schultz impression.


Walace Wood getting dangerously close to his own style.


My money is o Bob Clarke for this one, but I may be anyone.


Joe Orlando in his trademark 'funny' style.


Walace Wood wanted to take over Prince Valiant at one point. Here he takes it just a little bit over the top. Every line in this is funny.


The gags on the wall have a slight Bob Clarke feel to them.


Walace Wood did a whole series of these and he could have done more as far as I am concerned. If he had stuck with it, it could even have been his 'thing'.


I'd say Bob Clarke did these, based on the similarity to the signed ones he did for the magazine.


The Tarzan stip could be by Wood and probably is. I don't know who did the Phantom.


Here we have a surprise visit by George Woodbrigde whom I would have recognized had he nog signed it. Could he have done the two abve as well? I guess...