You never forget your first time

This cover from Jan 1976 is near and dear to me as it is the 1st time that I had ever seen a MAD magazine, and boy would it profoundly change my world. I was living in Kuwait at the time and had just seen the movie Jaws, hence the immediate recognition when I saw this cover in the window of the bookstore as I was making my way into the Sheraton hotel to have diner with my family.

After reading it I became obsessed with buying each issue as soon as it came out. I was immediately drawn to Don Martin's artwork and that led me to start drawing, initially imitating his characters. I must say that I got pretty good at doing the Don Martin thing (check out the artwork to the Don Martin dictionary posted a few months back on this blog) but then branched out developing my own style over the years.

MAD certainly gave me an education about various political figures, historical occurrences and social issues that I just hadn't learned about in school. Back in the '90's after having moved onto other things through the '80's I started collecting MAD again after seeing MAD About the Sixties at a BDalton's in the mall and resumed drawing. One thing led to another and I started submitting to MAD fanzines and then self publishing my own humor magazine THWAK which led to co-editing MAD's #1 rival CRACKED before working on another couple of projects.

I must say that had I not read MAD I never would have been so driven to be a part of the wonderful heritage of the humor magazine genre that I had enjoyed so much as a child. It has brought me countless hours of fun and I hope that others have enjoyed some of these publications as much as I have.