Mad #67

The "Special Fall Issue" banner says it all — Mad #67 (December 1961) arrives with a cover by Kelly Freas that captures the magazine's gleeful self-awareness perfectly: Alfred E. Neuman is sprawled flat on a cracked floor, cheerfully grinning beneath a massive set of ornate yellow "MAD" letters that have apparently just crushed him from above, while the cracked title logo looms at the top as if it punched right through the wall. It's a wonderfully absurd visual joke that the magazine plays entirely at its own expense, and Freas pulls it off with polished, deadpan realism that makes the silliness hit even harder. Inside, Mort Drucker illustrates Gary Belkin's piece on army rocket belts, making this a fine snapshot of Mad at its sharpest in 1961.