Al Jaffee's Mad Inventions #94-407 [6]

Al Jaffee's wit is on full display in this 1981 Warner Books paperback collecting his "patently absurd contrivances" — and the cover by Jaffee says it all. A mustachioed fellow lounges contentedly on a chaise, lazily operating a button-covered control box while a multi-armed robotic contraption does the hard work of painting a portrait of Alfred E. Neuman on an easel beside him. It's a perfectly self-aware premise — automation in service of pure laziness — and promises page after page of the gloriously overcomplicated gadgetry that made Jaffee's MAD work so enduringly funny.