American cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman was the founding editor and primary writer for the humor periodical Mad from its founding in 1952 until its 28th issue in 1956. Featuring pop-culture parodies and social satire, what began as a color comic book became a black-and-white magazine with its 24th issue.
In 1952 EC Comics publisher William Gaines suggested Kurtzman take on a humor title to supplement his income as editor and writer on the war series Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat. Kurtzman's Mad stories at first lampooned comic book genres; soon Kurtzman took to parodying specific targets from popular culture, a style which became a staple of Mad. Kurtzman targeted and exposed what he saw as fundamental untruths in the subjects parodied. Jack Davis, Wally Wood, and especially Will Elder were the most prominent of early Mad's stable of artists. Mad's signature style was to target pop-culture subjects with parody and social satire, and playfulness such as covers disguised as school notebooks or contents printed upside-down.
Kurtzman's war titles ceased following the end of the Korean War in 1953, and Mad went from bi-monthly to monthly in 1954. Kurtzman pushed to have it turned into a magazine, which Gaines agreed to in 1955. Plummeting sales of EC's horror comics following the 1954 Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency led to the cancelation of every EC title except Mad by the end of 1955. In 1956 Kurtzman demanded 51% ownership; Gaines refused, and Kurtzman left with the bulk of Mad's creative staff to found the short-lived Trump, published by Hugh Hefner. EC writer and editor Al Feldstein took over as editor at Mad, under whom sales climbed and the magazine became a newsstand fixture. Kurtzman went from one financially unstable publication to another before landing a regular position at Hefner's Playboy magazine with the comic strip Little Annie Fanny.
History
Kurtzman at EC (1949–52)
In 1949 Harvey Kurtzman (1924–1993) brought sample artwork to the offices of EC Comics in New York City. "EC" had originally stood for "Educational Comics" when it was run by early comic-book business pioneer Max Gaines, but his son Bill renamed it "Entertaining Comics" and changed the company's focus when he inherited the business. Gaines liked the samples of Kurtzman's Hey Look! strip, but had no immediate use for his skills. Gaines directed Kurtzman to his brother David, who gave Kurtzman low-paying work on Lucky Fights It Through, a two-fisted cowboy story with an educational health message about syphilis. Kurtzman continued to receive work from EC.
In late 1950 Kurtzman began writing and editing the adventure comic book Two-Fisted Tales for EC; the war title Frontline Combat followed in mid-1951. The stories had a degree of realism not yet seen in American comics. Kurtzman rejected the idealization of war that had swept the US since World War II. He spent days or weeks researching story details, in the New York Public Library or interviewing and corresponding with GIs.
Content and style
With the second issue's take on Tarzan Kurtzman developed the targeted parody style that became a signature of Mad. As Kurtzman described it, "Satire and parody work best when what you're talking about is accurately targeted ... when you reveal a fundamental flaw or untruth in your subject."
The parodies struck at the basic premises of their targets: the hero in "Superduperman" proves his mettle by defeating his foe and assumes he can win the heart of the woman he desires with displays of his machismo. She rejects him as she rejected his mild-mannered reporter alter ego, declaring, "Once a creep, always a creep".
Kurtzman tended to shy away from politics, though he made an exception with "What's My Shine?" in the seventeenth issue in November 1954. Via the format of the game show What's My Line?, Kurtzman satirized the televised Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954 that resulted in the US Senate reprimanding Senator Joseph McCarthy for his aggressively hunting out of Communist subversives. Kurtzman stated he made this exception as he felt McCarthy "was so evil. It was like doing a satire on Hitler."
Kurtzman gave several of the stories with a whimsical, deconstructionist approach: one issue was printed upside-down; another presented the same story twice, the dialogue replaced with gibberish in the second round; and one issue was devoted to a faux biography of Will Elder as fine artist. This playfulness extended to the covers. They imitated Life magazine, a tabloid newspaper, a racetrack results sheet, and a school composition book, with the notice: "Designed to sneak into class". On the 21st cover was a parody of the mail-order Johnson Smith Company's ads that were common in comic books—the Mad version offered a wide range of ridiculous merchandise, including torpedoes and live alligators. Kurtzman was responsible for the finished artwork on about half the covers.
Legacy
Mad's success immediately led to a slew of imitators form other publishers: Bughouse, Flip, Madhouse, Riot, Whack, Wild, and others. From December 1953 EC itself put out an imitator with the Feldstein-edited Panic.
The irreverent style Kurtzman had pioneered in Mad had a strong influence on the underground comix of the 1960s and 1970s.