Sunday Mailbag: Favorite MAD Cover?

Q: Do you have any favorite picks for covers of MAD Magazine? Or, perhaps a favorite piece of funny art done by another artist for a magazine not related to MAD?

A: That’s an impossible question, since MAD has had so many different eras of covers. There was the Kurtzman comic book cover area, the Mingo/Freas Alfred gag era, the interior MAD artists do covers era, the “reboot” era, the Fredrickson era, and finally the Burbank era. Each of these had their own best moments.

For most of the Mingo/Freas era, the covers involved a stand alone gag with Alfred. Some of the gags were pretty silly, but most were clever and defined Alfred’s character. That concept of a singular gag not related to anything inside the magazine appeals to me, as opposed to the “Alfred substitution” concepts that were leaned on heavily in latter years. An “Alfred substitution” cover is where a character or some element of the subject of some interior feature like the main movie or TV parody is replaced by Alfred as that character, and the other characters are looking suitably disgusted or shocked. These covers started becoming more common in the 80’s and by the end of the 20th century they were the most common kind of cover. Many were clever and still funny, but it was an easy cover solution and the gag got old.

But you asked me to pick my favorite MAD cover, so I will pick one. This cover is a favorite of mine because it was done by one of my favorite MAD artists and the art itself is superb. It’s also not an “Alfred Substitution” gag, but a stand alone gag. It also features my all time favorite fictional character, so win, win win:

Thanks to Andreas Ulanowsky from Sweden for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!