History of Mad - Expansion and Evolution

Expansion and Evolution

By mid-1953, William Gaines had made plans for expansion. After nine bi-monthly issues, Mad became a monthly with the April 1954 issue. At that same time, EC Comics launched another satirical bi-monthly, Panic, edited by Al Feldstein. Since this new title also used Kurtzman's core trio of artists (Davis, Elder, Wood), the peeved editor felt that Panic sapped and diminished the creative energy necessary to meet Mad's production schedule.

In 1955, with issue 24, the comic book converted to a magazine format. According to popular myth, this was done to escape the strictures of the Comics Code Authority, which was imposed in 1955 following U.S. Senate hearings on juvenile delinquency. Actually, Kurtzman had received a lucrative offer from another publisher, and only stayed when Gaines agreed to upgrade Mad.

In a 1983 interview with The Comics Journal, Gaines remembered:

"Harvey had come to me and said, “How would you like to turn Mad into a slick magazine?” And I said I wouldn’t like to turn Mad into a slick magazine, I’m a comic publisher, I don’t know anything about slick magazines, it’s a whole different ballgame and I’m not interested… And that was the end of it for six, eight, 10 months, until he was offered this job with Pageant… as I recall, he was going to begin with a section of the book to do all by himself and also a good chunk of money, which was more than he was making with me. And I countered this by recalling that he had wanted to make Mad a slick. And I said, “Harvey, if you stay, I’ll let you make Mad a slick.

And Harvey stayed, made Mad a slick, and didn’t even take as much money as he would have gotten at Pageant, because Harvey was never money-crazy. He could spend it like a maniac, but for himself, he was never demanding in that sense. So that’s how that happened.”

The immediate practical result was that Mad acquired a broader range in both subject matter and presentation. Magazines had wider distribution than comic books, and a more adult readership.

However, the Comics Code Authority had proven fatal to most of Gaines's EC Comics line due to restrictions on title and content. Gaines suffered both financially and creatively from targeted industry censorship and the enmity of his fellow publishers. EC's national distributor, Leader News Co, was the nation's weakest and did not have the clout to withstand an undeclared industry boycott of EC product: the company's comics were frequently returned still in their original unopened bundles. These factors combined to drive all EC Comics from the stands, except for Mad, which was too profitable to ignore. The company's financial status grew shakier in 1956 when Leader News Co. declared bankruptcy, leaving EC over $100,000 in debt. Only the Gaines family's investment of capital and a fortuitous deal with the much stronger American News distributor kept Mad afloat.