Quick Site Facts:
- This is a fan based site made by a fan for fans of Mad Magazine.
- This a non-profit site. I pay to keep the thing running.
- If you really, really like it, consider donating to the cause (help out with webhosting expenses and such).
- This site has scanned images of all the regular issue Mad comic and magazine covers starting with #1 from 1952 to the current day at 500 issues and counting. This can be interpretted as a violation of copyright laws. If I was making a profit off the depiction of these images, I would consider it a violation.
- I own all the regular issue magazines and their associated covers scanned into the site. I don't own all the specials, paperbacks, and mad collectibles. You'll have to visit my friend Dick Hanchette's site for that. Go to the links section.
- I am sharing my images so collectors will have an easier time identifying which issues they need to complete their collections. A side benefit for collectors who already have the issues is that viewing covers in this manner helps to preserve their precious originals. An unexpected number of artists and writers who work for Mad frequent the site for research purposes (or so they tell me). I also get research questions from Hollywood trivia game show writers verifying Mad-related questions they plan to ask contestants.
- I am also sharing my images to entertain and inform the non-collecting public.
- I consider this a public site, so please e-mail me with any observations or recommendations or questions. Your involvement keeps me motivated!
Assumptions I'm Making About Visitors To This Site:
- You might have actually heard of Mad Magazine (maybe even read a page or two).
- You're an old fart who use to have an issue or two that your big brother or sister handed down to you in 1961. After your crazy Aunt Hazel cleaned the attic and threw your Mad's out in the trash, you haven't been able to get that one great article out of your mind, and it's been haunting you for decades.
- You're a new fart who has never opened a magazine before. Prying yourself away from Left 4 Dead 3, you're searching for an MPEG Audio Decoder and happen across Mad Magazine's official website and text a friend for more info. The friend has no idea, Twitters "What's Mad?" and looks for a BitTorrent. Chatting on Facebook you see Mad there and a link to my site. "What's this crap?" you ask.
- You're Japanese and don't speak English very well and do a search for "MAD 44" (which means something in Japanese). Your search brings you to my site, where you ask, "What's this crap?"
- You're trying to sell off a box of old Mad's you found in the alley on Craigslist and link to my price list to authenticate things.
- You're doing a report for school on the history of American humor and Wikipedia pointed you here somehow.
- You're picking yourself up off the carpet, having just realized Mad is still publishing.
- You're an avid collector of Mad and use the site to help complete your collection.
- You're an avid collector of Cracked and hate all things Mad just because.
- You can't help asking yourself, "Couldn't this guy find anything better to do with his life? Sheesh, what a waste!"
- Send me an assumption I've missed: madcoversite@yahoo.com
Frequently Asked Questions:
- Why do you attach your name to the site, you egotistical schmuck? A few reasons. Early on when I had some problems with Mad lawyers over copyright issues, I made the decision to show beyond any doubt that these were my own personal magazines and I was the one responsible for showing them to the world. It's a legal thing. The other reason is because I used to get a lot of emails from people thinking my site was Mad's site. I thought prominently putting my name and image on my site would help to dispel that confusion. Also, I am an egomaniac hungry for your admiration.
- Do you sell issues? No, go to the Sellers section.
- Do you buy issues? No, go to the Buyers section.
- What's the value of such and such paperback? Since a price guide doesn't exist for paperbacks, I don't know. You could place a free sellers ad on my site and see what kind of response you get.
- Can I borrow (steal) your images since you've obviously stolen them from Mad? Ha Ha, good one. The right thing to do would be to leave the tags on the bottom of the images that you find you must borrow (steal) to identify the site from which you borrowed (stole) them. Most people do this or put a link on their sites to mine. I've never tried to hide the fact that Mad has not authorized me to do what I do. I have to assume Mad sees that I pose no threat to their profitability, maybe even seeing that I keep the Mad flame alive, stirring the embers of interest in a generation unaware that Mad has a history they should check out, or stoking the memory fires of former readers who may want to reconnect with this smoldering piece of trash. Is it getting hot in here?
- Why don't you show more than just covers? From time to time, I reprint things other than covers for the purpose of illustrating a point or answering a question, but I consider just showing the covers to be stretching the limits of copyright law.
- Do you know where I can find such and such article or picture? It doesn't hurt to ask me, but remember, I don't have issues for sale.
- Why are you giving Mad all this free publicity? I'm not running this site for Mad. I'm running it because I have a collection of Mads, some very basic internet skills, too much time to kill, and something wrong with me.
A few (very few) people have asked for information about the author of this site.
Like a lot of what's on the internet, please be aware that the following information
is probably questionable in its authenticity, accuracy, and reason for being presented.
Never enter into these sites blindly. Always question the motivation of the author!
Quick Author Facts:
- Name: Douglas James Gilford
- SSN#: 5##-#4-2##2
- Birth Date: June 5th, 1965 --- MAD had already been around 13 years before I was born!
- Birth Place: Portland, Oregon, USA --- A nice little rainy town...
- Birth Weight: 8 pounds, 6 ounces
- Birth Length: 22.5 inches
- Current Height: 6'3" and growing everyday
- Current Sex: Male
- Color: Caucasian --- I was called an albino by mean kids in school, but I've since darkened.
- Current Weight: around 229 pounds, thinner looking due to the height, with prominent spread developing in the stomach area, larger than average head doesn't seem to contribute to weight.
- Marital Status: Still married without children --- plenty of time to read MAD
- Hobbies: basketball, movies, computers, books, weird rock music to drive the wife nuts, canning peaches, trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, debating with myself on whether to go into therapy
- Greatest Physical Challenge: attaining the summit of Oregon's Mt. Hood (11,239 feet) with my brother
- Education: Bachelors degree Media and Theatre Arts from Montana State University in Bozeman
- Occupation: Co-owner/President Gilford's Floorcovering, Inc. Hey, it's work and I'm my own boss.
- Claim to fame: worked with director Alan Parker on Come See The Paradise as a camera assistant /
some of Alan Parker's other films were Mississippi Burning, Pink Floyd's The Wall, AngelHeart, Midnight Express...
- Goals: making some sense out of the world and finding Alfred's tooth
- Fantasy: some very prominent Mad representatives let me know they actually like the site, offer me a job doing on-line Mad promotional work (for real) like I've already been doing for over a decade, but, you know, legally and with their blessing - have to fly to New York now and then and consider giving up the floorcovering biz because of Mad demands
Quick Story About the Author:
This is going to be pretty vague because I can't remember for sure, but I think I was first introduced to Mad in the mid-'70s by
my babysitter when she brought along a copy of issue #155 from 1972. I remember at the time wondering what a Godfather was.
That was a classic issue to get introduced to because it had all the great Mad elements like Dave Berg's Lighter Side, Don Martin,
Sergio Aragones, great movie and TV satires. It was a wonderful time for Mad in general because they had Nixon to pick on. The country
was still wrapped in politics trying to get out from beneath an unpopular war. People were angry and distrustful of the government.
Mad was right there to help keep things stirred up.
Of course as a kid, barely eight or nine-years old, I didn't have much of a concept about what was going on in the country. I just
saw the babysitter's funny magazine sitting there with that neat fold-in thing in the back and that weird kid with a missing tooth.
What was that all about?
As I got into my teens I noticed I had accumulated quite a few Mads over the years but had never concluded at the time that I
was a collector. Then for no particular reason I just woke up one day and told myself I had to have every regular issue. I was
too young to drive, so I took busses to all the Portland used book stores I could find and dug through stacks and stacks of issues
that were pretty affordable for a kid. I didn't get into the heavy-duty purchases until my 20's when I'd go to comic book
conventions that would hit town once or twice a year.
Pretty soon I had them all, but to this day I could never explain the reason for the drive to own them all. Maybe I needed a measure
of control in my life (collectors definetly are the masters of whatever they collect). Maybe I was out to impress others (fat chance).
Most people who know I have the whole collection usually look at me with wide eyes and say, "that's very nice Doug." Then they grab their
kids and run away. Maybe I actually liked the magazine that much.
Whatever the reason, it's been a fun thing to collect. With the explosion of the internet I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of
people with this connecting interest from all walks of life all over the world. I never would have thought it possible when I was
paging through my first Spy vs. Spy.
Doug
In 2007, this interview expanded on some of the above.
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