MAD IMITATORS satire comics from the 50's

[ajaxfarrell]

I was trying to put together a list of the MAD IMITATORS from the 50's.....I need help...

 

How about a list of the parody-satire MAD imitators....

 

I can think of ....

 

MADHOUSE - ajaxfarrell

BUGHOUSE - ajaxfarrell

EH ! - Charlton

CRAZY - Atlas

Riot -Atlas

 

I need some help.

 

Plus anyone who wants to post pics of these issues would be appreciated too.

 

[Scrooge]

Get Lost by MikeRoss in 1954 (thumbs u

[Scrooge]

Should Panic! count in some perverted way ...

[jdjunker]

I think Panic definately counts. Even though it was the same publisher, it was the same kind of attempt to cash in on a hot trend.

 

Two other clear imitators were Nuts and Whack. Nuts went so far as to bill itself as something like "That Crazy Mad Comic."

 

If you're looking for titles with the same brand of humor, these are clearly not imitators, but Kurtzman went on to produce Humbug and Trump in the 50s and Help in the 60s. All three magazines are great!

[rjpb]

Harvey's FLIP and Charlton's FROM HERE TO INSANITY come to mind.

 

If you get into magazine sized imitators from the second half of the 1950's the list gets a lot longer. I can't recall titles but it seems I've seen a couple on ebay over the years that aren't in Overstreet.

 

[HouseofComics.Com]

Get Lost! is awesome. Good mention.

[rjpb]

WILD from Atlas is another.

 

 

What's interesting is that most of these imitators were largely marketed as "horror" parodies - at least judging by the covers. This is true of the early issues of MAD itself.

[jdjunker]

I seem to remember an ad that ran in Mad or Panic, possibly both, that made fun of all the imitators that were on the market around 1954 or 55. It incorporated all the one-word titles of the knock offs to get the point across that they weren't the real thing. I'll see if I can find a copy of it later and will scan it if I do.

[Point Five]

UNSANE -- very brief Star title from 1954...

[AtlasFan]

There were a lot companies that tried to jump on the "Mad" bandwagon.

 

Some were right up there with Mad in terms of art and humor, others, not so much..

 

Here are a few that were, at the least, on par with Mad...

 

Nice early Ditko cover...

 

Love this Kirby cover. The story is a hoot! I wish Kirby would have done some real adaptions of Jules Verne's works. Great parody of the Kirk Douglas film. Kirby signs his work "Jules Vermin". Good stuff!

 

These books were put out by Andru and Esposito's short-lived company: MIKEROSS. Some of the bits here were actually better than stuff that was appearing in Mad. So real was the threat that, legend has it, Bill Gaines was shocked when the sales of GET LOST started eating into Mad. He first tried to hire A&E to be Mad staffers. When the boys refused, Gaines tried to sue - but eventually drove them out of business when he pulled some strings with the distributer (who handled both EC and MIKEROSS).

 

 

[Point Five]

These books were put out by Andru and Esposito's short-lived company: MIKEROSS. Some of the bits here were actually better than stuff that was appearing in Mad. So real was the threat that, legend has it, Bill Gaines was shocked when the sales of GET LOST started eating into Mad. He first tried to hire A&E to be Mad staffers. When the boys refused, Gaines tried to sue - but eventually drove them out of business when he pulled some strings with the distributer (who handled both EC and MIKEROSS).

Wild! Never heard that before. (thumbs u

[jdjunker]

Wow--those are great looking books. Love the cover to From Here To Insanity #11 by Kirby. Never would have guessed it was by him. For some reason, it reminds me of Wood art.

 

I can see why Gaines would have been upset by the Get Lost book. A lot of the Mad imitators went pretty far in trying to ape the look of Mad, including the one word titles, similar fonts/typography and the verticle, boxed text along the spine. That first issue of Get Lost was amongst to most successful I've seen in that regard.

 

 

 

I can't find the ad I mentioned in an earlier post, but the point of it is along the lines of this cover to Panic #4. They rip on the other imitators and drive home the fact that Panic is "the only authorized imitation of Mad."

 

[AtlasT]

It only lasted 2 issues, but ATLAS's SNAFU was a very nice MAD magazine imitator, with much artwork by Bill Everett and Russ Heath.

[comic_lot]

Nuts! Lasted only 5 issues.

[Scrooge]

WILD from Atlas is another.

 

 

What's interesting is that most of these imitators were largely marketed as "horror" parodies - at least judging by the covers. This is true of the early issues of MAD itself.

 

There should be a rule that no one should start such a thread before a major show. Whenever in need to part with my $$$ I always buy Atlas books and sure enough I ended with those below (both issues # 1). I love seeing those guys doing parody instead of their usual stuff. I'm glad I picked those up and I am glad Moondog had these seriously nicely priced copies -

[AtlasFan]

From Here to Insanity #11 is a great Kirby gem - nearly all the stories, and fake ads, are by Kirby. I wonder why Simon & Kirby never produced a Mad-type humor mag for Mainline/Prize?...although FIGHTING AMERICAN is a super-hero parody, it only delt with that topic.

 

The Atlas Mad-wanna-bees had some great monster parodies. I would love to see some high grade scans of those (they are sooo tough to find in nice conditions).

Thanks,

Bill

[jdjunker]

I'm afaid I can't help with the high grade part, but here are the few Mad imitators that I have.

 

 

 

 

Note the tagline on the left edge "That Crazy Mad Comic."

 

 

 

And here is one of the all-time great visual puns on a cover. I can't believe this actually made it to publication.

 

 

 

And finally a book I've had basically all my life. One of the few comics of my father's that survived. This is issue #4.