Mad #43

Dec 1958 · EC · 0.25 USD

☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join free

“I Never Carry More Than $50 in Cash”

About this Issue

Mad #43 (December 1958) is a capsule of Al Feldstein's EC-era magazine at full creative stride, assembling an all-star roster — Wally Wood, Don Martin, Mort Drucker, Dave Berg, Joe Orlando, Bob Clarke, George Woodbridge — in a single 48-page issue that demonstrates how broadly and confidently the satirical magazine had expanded its targets beyond comic books and movies into advertising, television, sports culture, and the newspaper comics page itself. The centerpiece feature, 'The End of Comics,' in which Tom Koch scripts and Wally Wood draws imagined 'final strips' for ten beloved newspaper comics, is a sustained piece of meta-commentary on American pop culture that presaged the kind of media self-awareness Mad would make its signature for decades. The issue also coincides with Mad settling into its landmark eight-times-a-year publication schedule, the disciplined cadence that would carry it to circulation peaks in the early 1970s. A note in the Grand Comics Database suggests the 'Scenes We'd Like to See: The Frogmen' piece may represent Al Jaffee's first scripting contribution to Mad, making this issue a plausible entry point for one of the magazine's longest-running talents.

In "I Never Carry More Than $50 in Cash," Wally encounters a man whose curious habit leads to a surprisingly literal demonstration of a classic tune—complete with muddy feet and a surprising amount of enthusiasm. Written by Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding and brought to life with sharp, expressive art by Mort Drucker, this Mad classic blends satire and absurdity with a signature EC twist. The cover, by Kelly Freas, captures the story’s playful spirit with a perfectly deadpan expression.

writer Bob Elliott · writer Ray Goulding · artist, inker Mort Drucker · cover Kelly Freas

Find on ebay

Search eBay for Mad #43 ▸

No confirmed live listings for this exact issue right now — this opens an eBay search.

Sell my copy

Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.

We Buy Collections ▸

Fast, fair offers · we handle grading & shipping

History

Mad #43 was produced under editor Al Feldstein — who had taken over from Harvey Kurtzman in 1956 — and published by William M. Gaines's E.C. Publications in December 1958. Feldstein was still actively building his 'usual gang of idiots,' and by this issue he had assembled the core roster that would define Mad through the 1960s and 1970s. The cover was painted by Frank Kelly Freas, who had only become Mad's primary cover painter with issue #40 (July 1958) after a brief interior-art apprenticeship beginning in 1957; his impish, expressive interpretations of Alfred E. Neuman — here rendered as a scarecrow — were a notable departure from the more static renderings of his predecessor Norman Mingo. The GCD annotation citing Grant Geissman's book 'Feldstein: The Mad Life and Fantastic Art of Al Feldstein' as the source for Jaffee's possible first scripting credit underscores that the issue's historical details are still being reconstructed from primary documents.

Trivia · 8 facts

Published December 1958 by E.C. Publications; edited by Al Feldstein, published by William M. Gaines; 48 pages.
Cover painted by Frank Kelly Freas, depicting Alfred E. Neuman dressed as a scarecrow — one of his earliest Mad covers, having taken over as primary cover artist with issue #40 (July 1958).
Centerpiece feature 'The End of Comics' (script: Tom Koch, art: Wally Wood) imagines the final newspaper strips if papers dropped comics for educational content, parodying ten strips: Blondie, Little Orphan Annie, Mandrake the Magician (with Lothar), Dick Tracy (with Daddy Warbucks referenced via Annie), Dennis the Menace, Henry, Smilin' Jack, Li'l Abner, Pogo, and Mary Worth.
Characters from the indexed catalog — Blondie Bumstead, Dennis the Menace, Henry, Smilin' Jack, Little Orphan Annie, Lothar, Mandrake the Magician, Dick Tracy, Daddy Warbucks — all appear as targets of the 'End of Comics' newspaper-strip parody feature.
'Scenes We'd Like to See: The Frogmen' (art: Joe Orlando) is annotated in the Grand Comics Database as a possible first scripting credit for Al Jaffee at Mad, sourced from Grant Geissman's biography of Feldstein.
Additional contributors include: Don Martin ('The Electricians'), Wally Wood ('If Hollywood Directors Staged…Advertising Photos'), Dave Berg ('Pushcarts'), Larry Siegel and George Woodbridge ('MAD's M.V.B.T.A. Awards'), Bob Clarke, Mort Drucker, and material based on Danny Kaye's comedy performance.
Material from the issue was reprinted in More Trash from Mad #7 (EC, 1964), The Mad Frontier (Warner Books, 1975), Mad About the Fifties (Little, Brown, 1997), and Mad for Decades (Sterling Publishing, 2007).
Issue #43 appeared as Mad was finalizing its eight-times-a-year publication schedule — a cadence that, per Wikipedia and multiple secondary sources, the magazine maintained for nearly four decades and credited by publisher Gaines as essential to maintaining editorial quality.