My attempt to sell off boxes of 30-year-old+ comics was an abject failure. The market is flooded, the internet is taking over the comic space, etc. etc. Especially disheartening was that I couldn’t find a good home for all my old Mad magazines. Thumbing through the boxes a few months ago, had to take time out to do a bunch of Mad Fold-Ins — the back page was always a treat, and every issue has vertical creases at the 1/3 points. Creator Al Jaffe (now 86) has been creating the fold-ins by hand almost non-stop since 1964.
The New York Times is featuring an excellent collection of fold-ins, with interactivity expertly re-created in Flash.
Music: Holy Modal Rounders :: Down the Old Plank Road
What date range is your Mad collection? How much do you want for it?
I was recently telling my oldest son about how I got a parental dispensation when I was about his age (11) so that I could get a subscription to Mad for my birthday. I had been poaching the occasional mag from my older brother until then, loving it.
I had thought about buying it for my son a while back but found the modern version raunchier or perhaps raunchy in a different way that I wasn’t comfortable with. And surprisingly, full of real advertisements – I understand the need for them to find new ways to cover the bills but it seemed somehow impure and anachronistic to see ads for video games alongside Mad artwork.
Great/amazing to hear that Jaffe is still doing the foldouts – the art sure still seems consistent to the originals, so that makes sense.
I used to work at Pearl Paint in Jersey way back when (a big regional discount art store) and met a guy shopping there who had been an artist in ad agencies and at Mad over the years. I wish I got his name, I think he was one of the original gang from the ’50s… he had great stories to tell, it was a wild environment for an office back then.
I’m not exactly in an acquiring mode right now (in fact it would be stoopid for me to buy this, but its Mad) but if your collection isn’t too big and the price is right I might do it to share with my son. He would probably be polite and act impressed, and not quite get it.
I’m pretty much in the holding on to them for my kids mode now. I have 6 long boxes and the comic companies are all into restarting/condensing the characters that my originals aren’t even the stories my kids will know with the characters involved.
I too would be interested in hearing details of your Mad collection and then we could go from there.
Steve and Les – Sorry for the long response delay. I’m embarrassed to say that after more thought, I decided to hold onto the Mad mags after all. Finally got rid of the rest of the comics, but keeping those. Eeep, sorry.