Mad #86 (Albert Feldstein) - Last Consecutive Wood Issue - April 1964

Thus ended the artistic continuity that began with the first Mad.  There were no drawings by Wally Wood in Mad #87.  After issue 86, there was one page in Mad #90 ("An Incident at a Red Light") and two pages in Mad #143 ("Altar Ego").  The last page in #143 seemed to lack the expected Wood humor.  The same scene in the 1950s would have had several sight gags and the wagon kid.  In retrospect, I think that Wood needed Mad more than Mad needed Wood.

In my opinion, Wally Wood was the best cartoonist who ever drew.  His drawings combined his wonderful sense of humor with excellent parodies of science fiction, horror, comics and any other subject that a Mad writer could find.  Many of his characters appeared to be stepping right out of The Louvre.

It could be argued that Wood, as much as Feldstein, saved Mad when Kurtzman quit after issue 28 and took Elder and Davis with him.  Wood stayed with publisher William M. Gaines and EC.  He produced 232 pages of drawings in the first 20 issues after the Elder & Davis drawings were used.  He was an extremely prolific artist, producing drawings for several publications at the same time.  His 724 pages for Mad (and Panic) were just a small portion of his total output.

Wallace Wood died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on November 2, 1981.  His passing was not mentioned in Mad. [MADlog #13]

Alfred E. Neuman runs through Arabia wearing only a sheet. (pages 43-48)

Departments:
Good Grief - Insecurity Is a Pair of Loose Swim Trunks
Don Martin - The Small Businessman in the Amazon; In the Acme Ritz Central Arms Waldorf Plaza Hotel; Another Visit to the Dentist
Pannin' the Flash - News Photos We're Sure to See; News Photos We'd Like to See
Word Game Preserve - Mad Beastlies
The Error of Good Feeling - When This Trend Toward Understanding Gets out of Hand
Award to the Wiseguy - New School Letters for Unheralded Achievements
Joke and Dagger - Spy Vs. Spy; Spy Vs. Spy Vs. Spy
Berg's-Eye View - The Lighter Side of Married Men
Ad-Itorial - If magazine Ads Spoke the Language of the Magazines
The Malady Lingers On - The Evolution of a Popular Song
Missive Retaliation - The Mad Plan for Fighting Junk Mail
Fast Getaway - Quickie Vacations
What Kind O'Toole Am I? - Flawrence of Arabia

Fold-In - Liz Taylor