RELEASE DATE: 1964 DECEMBER

MAD MAGAZINE began as a comic book in October 1952.
It was part of a popular line of comics called E.C. comics published by William M. Gaines.
A mysterious smiling boy with a missing tooth shows up on a Mad pocket book and on comic issue number 21.
Mad's mascot is officially named Alfred E. Neuman. Mingo's Alfred would come to represent the standard reference for all future artists' depictions. Mingo, himself, would go on to paint 97 covers. And that's as far as I want to go here, which isn't very far at all. Volumes could be written on all the great artists and writers alone, not to mention the stories behind some of the more controversial subjects Mad poked fun at over the years. The biggest changes to Mad in fifty plus years have been its change in parent companies (D.C. Comics, Warner), the change in editorial staff from Feldstein to Nick Meglin and John Ficarra in 1985, the death of William Gaines in 1992, and the change to a color format along with the accepting of advertising in 2001.

THIS MAGAZINE WAS PUBLISHED IN USA BY E.C. PUBLICATIONS.