Over on Tom Spurgeon's fine site, The Comics Reporter, I explained (in this letter) about a bordered cover format that Marvel tried out in 1971. Tom asked about it, I answered…and I also explained about a cover border format that MAD Magazine test-marketed in the seventies. Folks are now writing me, asking where they can see an example of this MAD experiment so I thought I'd post the above.
Someone at MAD got the idea that it might boost sales to establish a decorative border format on their covers. Someone else, I guess, wasn't convinced this was a wise idea…so several issues were printed both ways. Some percentage of the press run had the yellow border on the cover, the rest didn't, and sales were charted. After a while, the bordered covers went away, never to be seen again. Which should give you some idea of how the test turned out.