Al Feldstein, who helmed most of the E.C. Comics and turned MAD Magazine into the most-read humor publication in the history of the world, has died at the age of 88. He passed at his home in Livingston, Montana where he retired in 1984 to spend his days painting. No cause of death has been announced.
I took the above photo of Al in the MAD offices in the mid-seventies. I made it clickable so you can enlarge it and see just what his workspace looked like — the typewriter on which he'd "spec" the type of every article in the magazine, the rubber cement jar, the proofs, the version of the potted plant "Arthur" on his window, the vintage MAD cover painting on the wall, etc. It is said that when Al edited MAD, he worked with a ruthless ethic, locking his door and rarely joining in on the general office merriment. He was obsessed with getting the magazine out on time and with utter clarity.
Some of those who worked for him (and me, when I visited and took this photo) thought he was cold and too business-like and that he showed surprisingly little sense of humor to be the editor of that publication. And it's true that a lot of its spirit and funny came from its superb roster of freelancers and from others in the office. A lot of what I laughed at, I now know, came from Assistant Editor Nick Meglin, for instance. But Feldstein was the guy who drove the bus…who got MAD on time after its founding editor, Harvey Kurtzman, proved unable to meet deadlines. And even if others discovered some of the great artists and writers who made that magazine so wonderful, Feldstein was the guy who recognized and hired the talent.
Before that, he was the editor-writer of Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, Weird Science, Crime SuspenStories and other legendary E.C. Comics. There were tons of imitations but the E.C. books stood out (and sold better), in large part because of Feldstein. We'd be hailing him as a giant of comics even if he'd retired after pressure groups forced E.C.'s comics off the stands. He didn't retire. He just left…and then one day, he returned.
Kurtzman, of course, was unable to keep the company's remaining title, MAD, on the newsstands with any regularity. He was also fighting with publisher William Gaines over the "package" (the cheap printing) and his deal. Finally, it came to a head: Kurtzman either had an offer from Hugh Hefner to create a similar magazine or he had reason to believe such an offer was looming. Either way, he went to Gaines and demanded 51% of the business or he'd walk. Gaines told him to run, not walk, and hired Feldstein back to run MAD. Since Kurtzman had been creating so much of the magazine himself and since most of his staff went with him to do the new magazine for Hef, Feldstein faced this absurd challenge: He not only had to get the publication on-time, he had to almost completely build a new talent pool of contributors. In short order, he had Frank Jacobs and Mort Drucker and Dave Berg and Don Martin and so many others who made the magazine successful. A bit later, he even hired a man named Sergio Aragonés.
I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Al at conventions. In retirement, he was a much nicer person than he was as an editor. He was also a little perturbed that so many people seemed to think Harvey Kurtzman did everything on MAD and that all those great E.C. Comics wrote themselves. He went to cons to remind people of his contributions and also to sell the very fine paintings he did. Some were western scenes. Others recalled his days with E.C. and MAD. You can still see some of them on his website.
Here's an obit on him. I will have more to say about what he did and why I liked him so much when I finish my current workload. This is a kind of tribute to the way he worked: I'm going to meet my deadlines and then write about him. That was how Al operated.