Mad #111
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMad #111 (June 1967) holds a distinctive place in the magazine's run as what its own cover packaging identified as a 'Special Racial Issue,' arriving at the height of the American civil rights movement and the Vietnam-era political ferment—making it one of the most topically concentrated single issues Al Feldstein's Mad ever assembled. The issue tackled race directly on multiple fronts simultaneously: the 'Stokely and Tess' piece filtered the civil rights movement through the lens of the opera Porgy and Bess, while 'Why Spy?' parodied NBC's I Spy at the precise cultural moment when that show's racially integrated starring partnership between Bill Cosby and Robert Culp was itself groundbreaking television. The 'Comic Strip Heroes Taken From Real Life' feature turned a gallery of mid-1960s celebrities—from Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand to Ringo Starr and Liberace—into comic-strip archetypes, demonstrating Mad's role as a pop-culture index that documented who mattered to American youth at any given moment.
In "Stokely and Tess," EC's Mad #111 delivers a sharp, satirical take on the spy genre, with two undercover agents posing as tennis pros in Hong Kong to track down a kidnapped atomic scientist who moonlights as a swimsuit model. Written by Stan Hart and brought to life with witty precision by artist Mort Drucker, the story blends Cold War paranoia with playful absurdity, all framed by Norman Mingo’s sleek, on-point cover.
In this 1967 satire from Mad #111, two secret agents posing as tennis pros hit the courts in Hong Kong, chasing a missing atomic scientist with a surprising side gig as a swimsuit model—because in this world, even espionage comes with a wardrobe change.
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Mad #111 was published by E.C. Publications in June 1967, under the editorship of Al Feldstein, who had guided the magazine since Harvey Kurtzman's departure and kept it on a reliable schedule through the 1960s. The cover was painted by Norman Mingo, Mad's longtime cover portraitist, with the interior featuring art by the magazine's core stable: Mort Drucker handled both the 'Stokely and Tess' and 'Why Spy?' pieces, Bob Clarke illustrated 'Comic Strip Heroes,' Jack Rickard drew 'Where Our Tax Dollars Go,' and Al Jaffee contributed 'Outdoor Sports Indoors,' while Antonio Prohias supplied the Spy vs. Spy installment and Sergio Aragones provided his characteristic margin cartoons. The issue appeared in the same summer that Kinney National Company was in the process of purchasing National Periodical Publications, the parent company that had owned Mad since around 1964.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published June 1967 by E.C. Publications; cover dated June 1967 and confirmed by multiple sources as issue #111 in the long-running Mad magazine series.
- Marketed and listed in secondary sources as a 'Special Racial Issue,' reflecting its unusually concentrated focus on race relations and civil rights figures at the peak of that national debate.
- Cover art painted by Norman Mingo, depicting Alfred E. Neuman in a pose playing on racial themes consistent with the issue's thematic hook.
- 'Why Spy?' (script: Stan Hart, art: Mort Drucker) is a 6-page parody of NBC's I Spy, caricaturing Bill Cosby as 'Scoot' and Robert Culp as 'Kitty,' set in Hong Kong—directly mirroring the show's real first-episode location.
- 'Stokely and Tess' (script: Larry Siegel, art: Mort Drucker, 7 pages) reimagines the civil rights movement as a sequel to Porgy and Bess, caricaturing Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Dick Gregory, Sammy Davis Jr., and Adam Clayton Powell.
- 'Comic Strip Heroes Taken From Real Life' (script: Frank Jacobs, art: Bob Clarke, 4 pages) transforms celebrities into comic-strip characters; indexed figures include Lyndon Johnson, Bob Dylan, Liberace, Barbra Streisand, Ringo Starr, and others.
- 'Spy vs. Spy' (script and art: Antonio Prohias) features The Black Spy tricking The White Spy into a rigged arm-wrestling match—one of Prohias's regular contributions to the magazine throughout this era.
- Additional contributors in the issue include Dick DeBartolo (script, 'Where Our Tax Dollars Go'), Jack Rickard (art), Al Jaffee ('Outdoor Sports Indoors'), Don Martin, Dave Berg, and Sergio Aragones (margin cartoons).
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Reprinted in Mad #9 (1968), The Completely Mad Don Martin #[nn] (1974), Dave Berg's Mad Trash #[nn] (1977), Dave Berg's Mad Trash #[nn] (1981), Mad Special [Mad Super Special] #38 (1982), Mad Special [Mad Super Special] #45 (1983), Mad Special [Mad Super Special] #66 (1989), Mad Special [Mad Super Special] #97 (1994), Mad for Decades #[nn] (2007), Mad's Greatest Artists: Don Martin #[nn] (2014), Mad's Greatest Writers: Frank Jacobs #[nn] (2015), Mad #9 (2019), Mad #21 (2021)
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