It's proving to be difficult to say goodbye to Nick Meglin, who worked for close to half a century at MAD magazine, including serving as its co-editor. He passed away at the beginning of June and since then, people have been writing about him and talking about him and they held a memorial service in New York not long ago and yesterday, we had one here in Los Angeles. Members of his family spoke as did his colleagues and friends including Arnie Kogen, John Ficcara, Sergio Aragonés, Bill Morrison, Tom Richmond, Charlie Kochman, Sam Viviano and me.
If you read MAD between 1956 and 2004, you laughed at something (probably many things) written by Nick Meglin…and probably not credited to him. And if you laughed at something he didn't write in that magazine, he probably should get half-credit for it either because he discovered the guy who did write it or was so important in setting the style for that magazine comedic attitude. As I said in my little speech, the sense of humor that permeated MAD — a snotty, cynical look at the world around us tempered by charming self-deprecation — was to a great extent Nick's sense of humor.
Anyway, we talked about him and toasted him and roasted him and told at least a few stories that might have prompted someone who didn't know Nick to wonder, "And you say you actually liked this guy?" Not "liked." Loved. I think this was the last Nick Meglin Tribute but who knows? Everyone had such fun, maybe we'll make it a series.