Mad #211

Norman Mingo's cover for this December 1979 issue delivers a wonderfully clever two-panel gag: in the top scene, a beret-wearing artist paints a King of Diamonds playing card on his easel while the card's "model" — a man costumed as the King — sits upright on a platform posing. In the bottom panel, Alfred E. Neuman is revealed as the grinning painter, and his royal subject has been flipped completely upside down to match the reversed figure at the bottom of a real playing card. It's a sharp, charming visual joke that showcases exactly the kind of wit Mad consistently brought to its readers in the late '70s.