'What, me worry?' Al Feldstein was 'Mad' to the end

Marking the passing of the creator of that witty, irreverent pop culture icon, Mad magazine.

THE buttoned-down conformity of 1950s America sparked a sea-change in comedy, and its most influential expression was Mad, a comic book and later magazine that turned on society and the media with an irreverence, the effects of which are still being felt today. As the producer of long-running animated comedy series The Simpsons, Bill Oakley said: “Everyone who was young between 1955 and 1975 read Mad, and that’s where your sense of humour came from.”

A portrait of Al Feldstein by Michael Netzer, Jan 10, 2012. – Wikimedia Commons