Posted in: Comic Connect Sponsored, Comics, Vintage Paper | Tagged: comic connect, mad #1, Mad Magazine, mad magazine #1

Mad Magazine #1 Up For Auction Today On ComicConnect

The one that started it all, ComicConnect has a true grail piece for humor fans and really anyone, as they currently are taking bids for a few more hours on a copy of Mad Magazine #1 from 1952. One of the most important print magazines ever published, this is one that can be confirmed to have more influence than pretty much any other. Whole lineages of comedy can be traced to this single issue. This CGC copy of Mad #1 is part of Event Auction #43 and is sitting right now at $553, a steal for such an iconic piece. Bidding ends today, so check it out below.

Mad Magazine #1 Is A Grail Piece In Any Condition

"Historic 1st issue!; Kurtzman cvr; Wood, Davis art (10-11/52) The argument can be made — and has been made very well — that American comedy of the past five decades owes its existence and style largely to this unassuming little raised-middle-finger of a comic, William Gaines' brutal, brilliant, brave broadside directed squarely at the heart of post-war American culture. Mad was a nearly instant smash hit, inspiring dozens of often dreadful imitators, and eventually morphed into a black and white magazine that became even more influential and world-famous throughout the 1960s and 1970s, but it was this full-color blast of sick humor that was a nuclear explosion going off in the minds of impressionable young readers and hip comedy mavens. One of the rare instances in which a series' style and tone was dead-on from the very first page, this outlandish first issue allowed Gaines and Kurtzman's small army of incredible talents to unleash the pent-up frustrations and residual traumas felt by the generation that grew up in the grinding poverty of the depression and survived the unspeakable horrors of WWII. Mad influenced everyone from Lenny Bruce to George Carlin to Ernie Kovacs to the Smothers Brothers, and beyond. It's hard to overstate the importance of this first issue, and the 22 comic issues following, to American popular culture, so we'll just stop trying now."

Again, this is part of ComicConnect's Event Auction #43, which runs today and tomorrow. This copy of Mad #1 is taking bids for a few more hours, so head here to get one in, and then click around and check out all of the other items ending over the next couple days.

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