Mad #12

Mad #12 from EC's 1954 run delivers one of the magazine's most gloriously self-aware covers — a text-only "Special Issue" designed, as it cheerfully announces, for readers too embarrassed to be caught with a comic book in public. The cover promises parodies and features including "Starchie," "Mark Trade," "3-Dimensions," and "From Eternity Back to Here," all deadpanned with that signature EC wit under the tagline "Humor in a Jugular Vein." Written by Harvey Kurtzman with art and inks by Will Elder, lettering by Ben Oda, and colors by Marie Severin, this issue is a ten-cent snapshot of satire firing on all cylinders.