Friday, November 4, 2011

Robert Grossman MAD paperback covers


In 1975, Ballantine books, in attempt to give their MAD paperbacks a more updated look,  hired the great airbrush caricaturist, Firesign theatre album cover artist, and National Lampoon regular Robert Grossman to create new cover art for the first five MAD paperbacks, originally issued in the mid-fifties.

Grossman has long been one of my favorite contemporary caricaturist/cartoonists, and I've always loved these paperback covers and his unique take on Alfred E. Neuman. Apparently MAD publisher William M. Gaines was not so pleased, and personally asked Ballantine founder Ian Ballantine to issue another set of the same books the following year, with brand new covers created by longtime MAD cover artist Norman Mingo. Go figure.

 These fun Grossman covers are pretty rare, enjoy!




1 comment:

  1. Nice post! I had bought all five of these at a flea market in the mid-70s, and all but "The Mad Reader" had their covers removed. Now I know why they were remaindered so soon after their publication date! It's nice to see the other four covers. These books were huge to my 12 year old mind. So much so that I subsequently lost all taste for contemporary Mad Magazine! In 1975, I met Harvey Kurtzman at my first comicon and got him to autograph the program book! As I matured, I got just a handle on who this Kurtzman fellow was and looking back I can't believe that I got to meet such a giant who cast an incredible shadow over comic art at such a tender age.

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