Mad #90
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMad #90 (October 1964) captures the magazine at a precise cultural crossroads, arriving just months after Beatlemania swept the United States and reflecting EC editor Al Feldstein's instinct to lampoon whatever was loudest in American life. Its back cover — a Frank Frazetta oil painting of Ringo Starr rendered as a dead-on parody of Breck Shampoo advertisements, headlined 'Make Beautiful Hair BLECCH' — is one of the most reproduced and discussed single pages in Mad history, demonstrating how the magazine weaponized the visual language of commercial advertising to comic effect. The issue also situates Mad within the concurrent ownership transition period, during which EC Publications was moving under the umbrella of Independent News, a DC Comics division, an editorial-context shift that would shape the magazine's direction through the rest of the decade. As a single issue, #90 bundles together a Spy vs. Spy installment, a Wally Wood celebrity-prosthetics piece, and a sharp Vietnam-era editorial cartoon — a snapshot of the Usual Gang of Idiots working at full stride.
In "If Celebrities Ran for Public Office," EC’s Mad #90 skewers political theater with a satirical take on celebrity influence, wrapping it in a parody of 1960s grooming ads. The issue features a delightfully absurd premise where Blecch Shampoo promises teenage boys the same charm as Ringo Starr—complete with Frank Frazetta’s bold, expressive artwork in every panel. The cover, by Norman Mingo, delivers the same sharp, comedic tone with its exaggerated, ad-inspired design.
In a sly 1964 satire from Mad #90, a record promoter boasts he can transform anyone—no matter how ordinary, or even a chimpanzee—into a teenage idol, all with the right mix of hype, image, and marketing. The piece skewers the music industry’s obsession with manufactured fame through sharp, typeset letters and deadpan absurdity.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The October 1964 issue was produced under editor Al Feldstein, who had led Mad since taking over from founder Harvey Kurtzman in 1956 and would preside over the magazine's rise to its circulation peak in the mid-1970s. The back-cover Ringo Starr commission came about through associate editor Nick Meglin, who recruited his longtime friend Frank Frazetta — then still an infrequent Mad contributor — to execute the Breck Shampoo parody painting, a job that significantly raised Frazetta's profile as an illustrator. The front cover was painted by Norman Mingo, Mad's premier cover artist, who in 1956 had created the definitive Alfred E. Neuman likeness that all other 'Usual Gang' artists subsequently followed.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published October 1964 by E.C. Publications; cover date confirmed by multiple sources including the Grand Comics Database (GCD issue #93890) and Doug Gilford's Mad Cover Site.
- Front cover painted by Norman Mingo, with the cover gag written by Sergio Aragones — one of Mad's signature margin cartoonists.
- Back cover features a Frank Frazetta oil painting of Ringo Starr parodying the long-running Breck Shampoo advertising campaign, with the headline 'Make Beautiful Hair BLECCH'; this commission was brokered by Mad associate editor Nick Meglin, a lifelong friend of Frazetta.
- The issue includes a Spy vs. Spy installment by Antonio Prohias — 'The Black Spy sabotages the White Spy's magic act' — which was later reprinted in the German Mad (BSV-Williams) series #65 (September 1974).
- Characters indexed within the issue's interior stories include Lyndon Johnson, Nikita Khrushchev, Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Joe DeRita (the Three Stooges lineup of the era), Charlie Chaplin (as the Little Tramp), Harpo Marx, Henry, Barbra Streisand, Burt Lancaster, and both the Black Spy and White Spy.
- A Wally Wood-drawn piece (script uncredited in GCD) satirizes celebrity prosthetics, featuring caricatures of Barbra Streisand, David Janssen, Kirk Douglas, and Burt Lancaster.
- The issue contains an editorial cartoon warning that school dropouts risked being drafted into Vietnam — one of the earlier instances of Mad directly engaging the Vietnam War in its pages.
- A Cinderella gag in the issue subverts the fairy tale: Prince Charming breaks the glass slipper before Cinderella can try it on — typical of Mad's pattern of deflating cherished cultural touchstones.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Svenska Mad #11/1967 (1967), The Ridiculously Expensive Mad #[nn] (1969), The Portable Mad #Q6296 (1970), The Completely Mad Don Martin #[nn] (1974), Mad #65 (1974), Mad Special [Mad Super Special] #41 (1982), Mad's Sergio Aragonés on Parade #14 (1982), Mad Special [Mad Super Special] #40 (1982), Mad #36 (2024), Mad #42 (2025), Mad #48 (2026)
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