Mad #216
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMad #216 is a representative snapshot of the magazine at peak Bronze Age form, deploying its full 'Usual Gang of Idiots' roster against two major pop-culture targets simultaneously: the blockbuster Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the ABC sitcom Benson. The issue's most catalogued contribution is Don Martin's 'Don Martin Looks at… The Lone Ranger' strip, which brings the characters of John Reid (the Lone Ranger), Tonto, and Silver into Mad's universe of physics-defying slapstick and elaborate onomatopoeia — a mode of western satire Mad had practiced since its earliest comic-book days. While not a debut issue for any of those characters within Mad's long history of western parody, it stands as a well-documented example of how the magazine's signature visual comedians — Martin chief among them — consistently reframed American pop mythology for a mass readership.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Published in July 1980 by EC (under publisher William M. Gaines), Mad #216 arrived during the magazine's mature, post-circulation-peak era, when editor Al Feldstein's disciplined scheduling kept the title on a reliable monthly rhythm and the stable of contributors was at its most polished. The cover was penciled and inked by Jack Rickard, a longtime Mad cover specialist, with a cover line credited to Dave Manak. Don Martin, billed by the magazine as 'Mad's Maddest Artist' throughout his tenure from 1956 to 1988, contributed the Lone Ranger strip during the height of his powers — still nearly a decade before his acrimonious departure over paperback reprint royalties.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published July 1980 by EC Comics (William M. Gaines, publisher); cover by Jack Rickard, cover line by Dave Manak.
- Don Martin wrote, penciled, and inked the western-parody strip 'Don Martin Looks at… The Lone Ranger,' indexing characters The Lone Ranger (John Reid), Silver, and Tonto.
- The issue includes a satire of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) with art by Mort Drucker, and a separate parody of the ABC sitcom Benson with art by Angelo Torres.
- Regular recurring features present: Al Jaffee's 'Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,' Dave Berg's 'Lighter Side of…,' and Sergio Aragonés' marginal drawings throughout.
- Frank Jacobs contributed a written satire piece; the full contributor list also includes Tom Koch, Dick DeBartolo, Don Edwing, Paul Peter Porges, Lou Silverstone, Paul Coker Jr., George Woodbridge, and Jack Davis.
- The Don Martin Lone Ranger strip was reprinted internationally: in the German BSV-Williams edition of Mad (#137, September 1980) and in Norway's Norsk Mad (#1/1981).
- A separate Frank Jacobs piece from this issue was later collected in the EC trade paperback 'A Mad Big Book [Mad Zaps The Human Race!]' (March 1984) and in Mad Super Special #57 (Winter 1986).
- Don Martin had his own dedicated section — 'Don Martin Dept.' — a distinction no other Mad contributor held; by 1980 he had appeared in well over 200 issues of the magazine.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Mad #136 (1980), Mad #137 (1980), Norsk Mad #1/1981 (1981), Mad #150 (1981), Norsk Mad #1/1982 (1982), A Mad Big Book [Mad Zaps The Human Race!] #[nn] (1984), Mad Special [Mad Super Special] #47 (1984), Mad Special [Mad Super Special] #57 (1986), Mad Super Special #Mad Autumn '87 Super Special Number 60 (1987), Mad Special [Mad Super Special] #58 (1987), Mad Star Trek Spectacular #[nn] (1994), Mad #38 (2024)
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