John Kennedy

A Silver Age satirical icon, John Kennedy made his comics debut in the pages of Mad #77 in 1963, brought to life by the sharp wit of Gary Belkin and the legendary linework of Wallace Wood. As a subject for Mad's irreverent brand of humor, he joins a remarkable roster of page-companions — Abraham Lincoln, Richard Nixon, Charlie Brown, and Alfred E. Neuman himself — which tells you everything about the gloriously absurd company this magazine kept. Turning up across a surprisingly wide span of years from 1963 to 2015, and even finding his way into Before Watchmen: Comedian under the DC banner, Kennedy's comics presence is a fascinating artifact of how American satire and history have always been intertwined on the printed page.