Lio by Mark Tatulli for April 07, 2011

Even spooks know a good magazine.

Hey - why aren’t they laughing?

^ That comes in the next panel.

The spooks are imitating Alfred E. Newman.

I never really got into Mad.

Somehow I didn’t figure Lio for a National Geographic mag fan.

In the watchful forest, I think it’s Spook vs Spook rather than Spy vs Spy.

Mad was at its peak during the 80’s. Now its more like a political mag :(

I used to read Mad in the late 50’s early 60’s, lost interest in it after that.

What, me worry? 35c CHEAP

Piece of advice. Do not buy a copy when you are in your late 40s just to see if it’s the same as your early teens (it is) Do not leave it in your desk drawer. With your head hung in shame, do not remove it from your office and bring it home. I never did this, just advice.

If you did nothing but lurk in The Watchful Forest all day, you’d need a good laugh, too.

Don’t you just hate when a hundred people(?) read over your shoulder?

The spooks seem to enjoy it more than Lio does.

Spies are spooks. The scariest kind.

Half way through the magazine, and Lio hasn’t even cracked a smile yet.

Of course Lio hasn’t smiled, he just found out that MAD runs advertising now.

I think the ‘E’” in Alfred E. Neuman’s name stands for ‘Enigma’. Seem to recall reading that somewhere, years ago.

“Reading my magazine with the usual gang of idiots”

Mad, great stuff.

I couldn’t afford it but a couple of times when I was a kid in the 1950s, but it was a gas whenever we could get it. It changed ways that we looked at things, and we shared and passed it around.

Always loved Mad. First thing I had to see was Spy vs Spy (to see if the black spy won), then went to read the articles that had my favorite artists–Don Martin (RIP), Paul Cocker, Jack Davis, Al Jaffee and Mort Drucker.

Yeah, William Ganes would be spinning in his grave and might even come out of it (don’t forget he also founded the infamous EC horror comics) if he saw what Mad has become.

I was more into Cracked than Mad while growing up; it was just more fun.

BTW, from the way those guys are grinning, are we sure that Lio isn’t hiding a more “adult” magazine inside that Mad? After all, it would explain why he went deep into the woods just to read a magazine.

The (former) Mad nerd in me is compelled to point out that 1) they stopped using that cover logo in 1955, and 2) Spy Vs. Spy didn’t start running until about six years after that. Unless that’s a really Special Issue Lio’s got there….

Nitpicking aside, always love seeing a Mad reference.

Used to spend about a week with the paperback MAD collections, mainlining Sen-Sen from the store down on the street, back when there was a Coliseum Hotel at Santa Barbara and Figueroa, and we’d come to LA for a visit (way before SB became MLK).

Would be ‘elevator operator’ and make ice runs to the basement when I was needed out of the room… Or beg the parents for parts in the National Schools store across the street.

That intense concentration (of MAD) left the outlook in a definitely -um- different twist!

Yeah, MAD magazine went downhill after Bill Gaines died. Not only the advertising, but th vulgarity and profanity that has crept into it and adds nothing to the humor. It ain’t the same.

ever get that feeling youre being watched???XD