The LAST auction of original MAD Art! (”Really! We mean it this time!”)
Well, I’m not sure if this news falls into the category of “alarming for the near-term future of the magazine,” but MAD is selling at auction what they say is the LAST of the original art from their vaults. (And it must REALLY be the “last,” because they said the auction 2 years ago was the “last” stuff they had.)
They’re auctioning off mostly MAD covers from the late 50s and 60s — some of the classic ones that I loved as a kid, even more so after I became a regular writer for the magazine and started comparing them to new MAD covers as they appeared. Sometime in the 70s, the archetypal “Alfred E. Neuman-as-the-hot-new Movie or TV character“-cover took over; personally, I found that trend crass and pandering in a way that the old MAD covers definitely were not. Old MAD covers usually featured just Alfred and some comical demonstration of his imbecility, or maybe a surreal, M.C. Escher-like optical illusion, and basically said to the potential reader, “Take us or leave us, we don’t care — these are the kind of covers we like, dammit!”
I’ve always thought the “Alfred-morphing” covers were the lamest (conceptually, not artistically) — especially ones where there was nothing else “there” except the Alfred-substitution and maybe a simplistic turning-around of an actual phrase or saying — the most recent lame example being the “Yes, We Can’t!” sign held up by “Alfred-morphed-into-Barack Obama” on the cover of MAD #493. Yawwwwwn. (In fairness, though, I ought to disclose that the Alfred E. Obama cover made my teenage nephew laugh out loud.)
So, definitely check out the MAD Art at Heritage Auctions. There’s some really great stuff there — including a few I wouldn’t mind trying to snag for myself, that is, IF my personal-playthings budget were 1 or 2 orders of magnitude greater than it is! The pre-auction estimates have most of these covers going for $5,000-$10,000 each. But if you’re a filthy rich MAD nut who still has “buckage” to blow after the recent economic meltdown, go do some shopping! (Heck, you might even be helping save the magazine for an additional month or two!)
(BTW: One nice little “bonus” of the previous MAD Art auctions - literally –was that we writers actually got a little taste of the action, as well as the artists, if the art sold was based on ideas or scripts written by us. Last year, I received a $600 check for art sold at the 2006 Heritage Auction that was drawn for articles I wrote years ago! I have no idea whether they’re legally required to do that or not…but either way: Thanks, guys!)