Mad #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMad #1 is the founding document of American satirical comics — widely regarded as the first comic book devoted entirely to parody and social satire, it introduced a mode of humor that taught a generation of postwar readers to question the mass media, advertising, and authority figures they were surrounded by. Written and edited by Harvey Kurtzman, it launched what would eventually become the most influential humor publication in American history, directly seeding the sensibilities behind National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live, and generations of irreverent comedians and writers. The Comics Journal later ranked the full Kurtzman run of Mad (issues #1–24) among the top ten English-language comics of the entire twentieth century. Crucially, it was the one EC Comics title that survived the mid-1950s Comics Code Authority crackdown that killed every other title in the EC line, proving that satire had commercial as well as cultural staying power.
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EC Comics publisher William Gaines proposed the title to Kurtzman in 1952 partly as a financial remedy — Kurtzman's painstakingly researched war titles, Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, were less lucrative than the horror books Al Feldstein was editing, and Gaines believed a humor book would require less effort to produce. The title itself was contested at the planning stage: Feldstein later claimed the name 'Mad Mag' was his suggestion, while Kurtzman remembered it as his own idea, with the name eventually shortened to just 'Mad.' The issue's two cover taglines — 'Humor in a Jugular Vein' (a wordplay on 'jocular') and 'Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad' (a riff on radio drama Suspense's opening line) — signaled from the first page that this was a comic with a sinister satirical edge. Kurtzman scripted every story in the issue himself and worked as a hands-on auteur, providing detailed layouts that artists were expected to follow faithfully; colorist Marie Severin handled the color art.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Published by EC Comics; went on sale July 10, 1952, with an October–November cover date — the first issue of what would eventually run for 550 issues across 66 years.
- Written almost entirely by Harvey Kurtzman, who also drew the cover; interior art was contributed by Wally Wood ('Blobs!'), Jack Davis ('Hoohah!'), Will Elder ('Ganefs!'), and John Severin ('Varmint!') — four of the most acclaimed EC house artists.
- The issue contained four comic stories — 'Hoohah!' (horror parody), 'Blobs!' (science-fiction parody), 'Ganefs!' (crime parody), and 'Varmint!' (Western parody) — plus two text stories by Kurtzman, spoofing the dominant genre comics of the era without yet targeting specific named properties.
- The first two issues of Mad parodied comic-book and movie genres broadly; it was not until issue #3 that Kurtzman shifted to direct parodies of named pop-culture properties such as Dragnet and The Lone Ranger.
- According to FBI files on William Gaines and EC Comics obtained via a 2012 FOIA request, the first issue had a print run of approximately 400,000 copies.
- The comic book ran for 23 issues before converting to a magazine format with issue #24 in 1955 — a shift driven by Kurtzman's demand for an upgrade rather than solely by Comics Code restrictions, per Gaines's own 1983 account in The Comics Journal.
- Major reprint editions include Russ Cochran's The Complete Color Mad (1986), DC's The Mad Archives Vol. 1 (2002), a DC Millennium Edition (2000), and a full Facsimile Edition published by DC Comics on June 4, 2024, reproducing the original issue including its period advertisements.
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Reprinted in Mad #1 (1952), Son of Mad #S1701 (1959), Mad Strikes Back #491K (1961), Mad Strikes Back #01564 (1969), Mad Special [Mad Super Special] #9 (1972), Son of Mad #7 (88-760) (1979), The Complete Color Mad #1 (1986), Mad about the Fifties #[nn] (1997), Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad #1 (1997), Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad #4 (1998), Tommy og Tigern #8/1999 (1999), Millennium Edition: Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad 1 #[nn] (2000), The Mad Archives #1 (2002), The Son of Mad #[nn] (2003), Cent pour cent #[nn] (2010), Mad's Original Idiots Jack Davis #[nn] (2015), Mad's Original Idiots Wally Wood #[nn] (2015), Mad's Original Idiots Will Elder #[nn] (2015), Mad #22 (2021), Mad #30 (2023), Artisan Edition #[16] (2024), Mad 1 (Facsimile Edition) #[nn] (2024), Atlas Comics Library #8 (2025)
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