Mad #162

Mad Magazine's October 1973 issue delivers one of the magazine's most perfectly timed visual jokes: the cover by Norman Mingo shows Alfred E. Neuman cheerfully building an elaborate sandcastle on the beach, a massive wave looming behind him — and the second panel reveals only the sandcastle standing intact while Alfred himself has been buried up to his hair by the surf, his shovel and blue bucket scattered beside him. It's a two-panel gag that says everything about Alfred's particular relationship with disaster. At just 40 cents ("Cheap," as the cover helpfully notes), this is a fine slice of early-'70s Mad at its most gleefully deadpan.