It’s a MAD Art Show!

The St. Louis Artist’s Guild has apparently hit rock bottom, as they are stooping to an exhibit of artwork from MAD Magazine and as a result will no doubt lose all credibility as a patron of the arts. Worse yet, they aren’t even making any money off of it as it is free to the public!! What are they thinking?

The show opening this Sunday with a reception from 1:00- 3:00 pm at the Guild’s gallery, and runs through Sept. 6th. I do not believe that there is any of my artwork in it, unless it’s from some private collection. All the more reason to attend.

This from the St. Louis Artist Guild Website:

Mad Magazine Exhibit

Opening: June 22, 2008 1 p.m. ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ” 3 p.m.

Admission: Free and Open to the Public

(Free is always good!) Refreshments, door prizes and maybe a special appearance by Bigfoot! (Maybe not!)

Come Join us for an exhibition of original Mad Magazine art, printed samples and other crazy stuff that will amuse, confound and possibly outrage you!

Mad Magazine introduced some of the best contemporary illustrators and writers of the day and helped define the genre of humorous magazine satire in America. In the early days, Mad was blacklisted by parents, denounced by school principals, turned down as subversive by many a distributor and even the subject of a senate sub-committee investigating the root of juvenile delinquency!

Mad not only survived, but prospered greatly and continues to do so over 56 years later. Christie’s Auction House in New York has sold many original pieces of Mad art, some fetching staggering prices. In 1987 movie maker, Steven Spielberg paid over $15,000 for the original cover art of Mad #1! So come by and see a little bit of controversial, history-making material that in the 50’s had parents wringing their hands and kids hiding magazines under their mattresses.

You’d have to be “Mad” to like this show, and you’d be Mad to miss it!

Curator: RJ Shay, Cartoonist, St. Louis, Missouri

Well, MAD wasn’t actually the subject of the senate sub-committee hearings (that was in part E.C.’s horror title comics) but nobody likes the facts getting in the way of a good gag! I will be able to attend this show sometime this summer on a visit to my Six Flags operation in St. Louis, and will be sure to post about the show… maybe I’ll get arrested trying to tape one of my originals up over some John Caldwell piece!