Gaines Books

The title of "The Brothers Mad" is a takeoff on the Yul Brynner movie "The Brothers Karamazov," which has been largely forgotten (although it was on cable the other day as I was flipping around). Anyhow, this little tidbit explains why one of the four heads of Alfred E. Newman on the cover is bald. Then again, this volume, which was published in 2002 was first published in 1958 and reprinted "Mad" strips from 1953-1955. Of course, this all explains why the panels are mostly present sideways.

Included within this pages are "Black and Blue Hawks!" the Harvey Kurtzman/Wallace Wood lampoon of Will Eisner's "Blackhawk," a Jack Davis drawn parody of "The Dave Garrowunway Show," Robert Price's "How to Get into the Army," and the Kurtzman/Bill Elder take off of Shermlock Shomes." However, my favorite is probably "Alice in Wonderland," another Kurtzman/Davis collaboration, that takes on both of Lewis Carroll's famous novels and incorporates some of John Tennils' original drawings. I also enjoy the comic book parodies, such as "Woman Wonder!" and the five daily strips including "Popcorn" and "Manduck the Magician" that close the collection.

Pretty much everything that is found within these pages can be found in better formats with regards to size and color, but there is something to be said for the quaintness of the old style way of William M. Gaines trying to make money off of the old "Mad" stories. "The Brothers Mad" is certainly a representative sampling of what the comic book was putting out under Kurtzman's leadership (remember, it did not become a magazine for several years, by which time Al Feldstein was at the helm) and Grant Geissman's introduction puts the collection in hysterical, um, I mean, historical perspective.