Mad #498

Mad Magazine's February 2009 issue tackles the dawn of a new presidency with characteristic irreverence, featuring cover art by Mark Fredrickson depicting a wild-eyed Obama caricature at the Oval Office desk, simultaneously chomping cigarettes and clutching his head in apparent overwhelm. The desk is buried under a chaotic pile of headlines — "Dow Crashes," "New Taliban Threat," "Automakers Broke" — alongside a top-secret Iran dossier, a National Security Agency file, spilled Pepto-Bismol, and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, all while an "Obama Change" coffee mug sits front and center. It's a sharply observed snapshot of early-2009 anxieties, delivered with the gleefully absurd energy that's kept Mad readers grinning for decades.