Going "MAD"

I've carried the above book around for decades. Used to have more MAD books but held onto just one as a memory. And so much of MAD is in my memory: Don Martin cartoons, Mort Drucker drawings, 43-man squamish, "My Fair Ad-Man," Things We'd Like to See, Spy vs, Spy, mockery of all sorts from the usual gang of idiots. I even read some of the old MAD comic books, which my piano teacher had for students to read while we were waiting -- along with some of the EC horror comics which preceded MAD. In college, a student I knew was the son of a MAD artist. Even as I moved on to other forms of humor, notably the National Lampoon and the satire of Pogo, MAD remained a touchstone.

Now, we are told, MAD as we knew it is done  ending the development of original content for the magazine, focusing instead on republication of old stories along with some special issues.I can't say this is a loss to today's world, since I can't remember the last time I looked at an issue of MAD. But it is a loss to humor history, where MAD once occupied a glorious place, and made me laugh in just about every issue.