Mad Strikes Back! by Wallace Wood

Mad Strikes Back! Reviews

• 
  Michael David

  A lot of stuff with regard to politics has become dated. However, students of history should nevertheless be able to squeak out laughter from this intelligently written book being sardonic about everything in America. It's still a good comic.
• 
  Erik Graff

  Despite efforts to map the influence of literary pornography in childhood, most of my book reviews give the misleading impression of a precocious boy genius, a Tom Swift of the intellect. Riding to the forest preserves along the DesPlaines River with two dogs and a human friend today, I tried to come up with a list of hitherto unmentioned literary influences dating to elementary school which would give a more balanced picture of my actual interests. Along with Proust and Nietzsche I came up with the publications of Mad Magazine, the series of paperback reprints in particular, all of which I acquired during grade school, all of which I read again and again and again.
  
  The title most outstanding of the lot is Mad Strikes Back. First published in 1955, it consists of reprints from their period as a comic book. I purchased it for something like $0.35 at the Meadowdale Shopping Centre, then home of the "world's largest department store under one roof"--one of the very many signs of global progress spearheaded by the American free enterprise system. Being with my parents, my reading of it began immediately--an early lesson in the necessity of always having a book along to avoid the agonies of boredom consequent upon human herd behavior.
  
  Although I occasionally picked up an actual issue of Mad Magazine itself, none of them compared to the quality of the paperback reprints of their really old material, the humor of which is sometimes actually appealing to both adults and kids and the artwork of which is often quite impressive for its zany detail.
• 
  Richard Epstein

  Just as I blame Chevy Chase for the election of Jimmy Carter, I credit Mad with much of what happened in the 60s and early 70s. Nothing else in our preadolescent lives broke down automatic respect for established norms and authorities. I can conceive of a time or place where something like that might not be a good thing. Not there. Not then.
• 
  Steven Peterson

  Another mad Mad product! It begins with straight talk from Bob and Ray (for those of us who remeber Bob and Ray, we betray our age!). Then, takeoffs on a number of subjects are sent up: Popeye, Prince Valiant (remember that comic strip?),King Kong, and so on. As always, fun. . . .
• 
  dirt

  Good times. And really racist times. Yikes.
• 
  Richard

  loved it overall but hated the last story about manduck the magician