Mad #539

Mad #539 jumps on the adult coloring-book craze of 2016 with a cover that puts Alfred E. Neuman right in the middle of it — gap-toothed grin in full force, he holds a fistful of crayons and colors his own cheek red against a dense, uncolored doodle background begging to be filled in. The cover teases a "Trumpmania" feature and Mad's spoof of The Force Awakens (rendered here as "Star Bores: The Snores Awaken"), promising the magazine's reliably irreverent take on the pop-culture moment. It's a playfully self-aware issue that turns the cover itself into part of the joke.