MAD books

(Signet/Warner, 1954-1993) During quarantine I attacked a very specific section of my bulging bookshelves. I own a complete set of dog-eared editions of every MAD paperback (one copy of each book, not the dozens of cover variations that a deeper MAD-head would covet). Between 1954 and 1993 MAD Magazine worked with publishers to release about 250 pocket paperbacks, 93 of which were eye-straining reprint compilations, with the rest featuring original material, or books by individual MAD artists compiling new or previously published work (plus a few outliers, like a William Gaines biography, and The Mad Morality, a faith-based reading of MAD's ethics). I read one or two of these a day most of the year. It was a stupid thing to do, as MAD revels in hack-ish, Vaudeville-era expiration date humor, and elbow-in-the-ribs pseudo-Yiddish wordplay. In small doses this is harmless, but ther MAD brain you get from overload iis something else. HOWEVER the artwork by Al Jaffee, (who turned 99 under quarantine this year, and retired), Jack Davis, Sergio Aragones, and a dozen other genuine geniuses (80s-era Paul Peter Porges’ illustrations knock me silly) make the worst jokes worth it. Mort Drucker (who did not make it out of this terrible calendar year) drew some of the best, most hilarious pages in history illustrating jokes that the Full House writer's room would reject. And on the non-too-infrequent occasions when something is actually funny the yucks are more intense after being primed by puerile punnery.  I saved my last Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions tome for the grand finale, and when I finished it i felt more snappy than stupiid for spending my year embracing a unusual gang of idiots.