Mad #525

MAD's annual "Dumbest" issue arrives in fine form with issue #525, featuring Mark Fredrickson's gleefully exaggerated caricatures of Miley Cyrus and a figure in a black-and-white striped suit rendered with Alfred E. Neuman's unmistakable face — tongue out, gold microphone in hand, the whole spectacle dripping with 2014 satirical energy. Fredrickson's hyper-realistic painting style gives the cover an almost unsettling polish that makes the absurdity land even harder. The roster of targets — Barack Obama, Alex Rodriguez, the U.S. Congress, Anthony Weiner, Paula Deen, and many more — promises MAD at its sharpest and most gleefully unforgiving.