Mad #501

MAD #501 leans into the 2009 economic moment with characteristic cheek, billing itself a "Special Hard-Times Survival Issue" right on the cover. Mark Fredrickson's hyperrealistic painted cover shows Alfred E. Neuman sitting against a brick wall in tattered clothes, grinning his gap-toothed grin and holding a cardboard sign reading "Will Worry for Food" — a rat his only company. Inside, the magazine takes aim at everything from useless iPhone apps to Harry Potter, Shatner's Twitter habits, and more, proving that even in lean times, MAD's satirical appetite remains healthy.