Al Goldstein was the notorious pornographer, who published "Screw" magazine. He died last December. (Obituary blogged here.)
Al Feldstein, the subject of today's obituary, was a key figure in "Mad" magazine. He took over from its founder Harvey Kurtzman:
[Feldstein] hired many of the writers and artists whose work became Mad trademarks. Among them were Don Martin, whose cartoons featuring bizarre human figures and distinctive sound effects — Katoong! Sklortch! Zazik! — immortalized the eccentric and the screwy; Antonio Prohias, whose “Spy vs. Spy” was a sendup of the international politics of the Cold War; Dave Berg, whose “The Lighter Side of ...” made gentle, arch fun of middlebrow behavior; Mort Drucker, whose caricatures satirized movies like Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters” (“Henna and Her Sickos” in Mad’s retelling); and George Woodbridge, who illustrated a[n article about] 43-Man Squamish, “played on a five-sided field called a Flutney.” Position players, each equipped with a hooked stick called a frullip, included deep brooders, inside and outside grouches, overblats, underblats, quarter-frummerts, half-frummerts a full-frummert and a dummy.A very nicely written obituary... except for SCREWing up the name.
UPDATE at 10:16: The NYT has fixed the error.
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29 comments:
Goldstein, Feldstein, what's the difference?
Oh you peasant. Don't you know that the main stream media, lead by the venerable Grey Lady have layers and layers of fact checkers (as opposed to you unwashed bloggers) who can not get anything wrong. Obviously he either legally changed his name or this is just an endearing nickname that those closest to him used. It of course can't be wrong anymore than the sun could rise in the east.
Close enough for the NY Times.
I suspect Mr. Feldstein would find this laughably good -- and be writing up an article for Mad on it.
Loved Mad. Still love it. Thanks, Al.
I see it's correct now, thanks for the screen shot.
Of course, they don't say they screwed up.
Apparently to the NYT, all jewish names sound alike
It's not just a bloggers v. professional journalists split, as evidenced by the proggers over at Vox. They rode blogging quite far.
As to financials, perhaps they could take a look at MAD Magazine, and Screw, to get some business tips on how to make money once you've built an audience.
William Gaines bought all rights to everything in Mad.
Smart man.
Al Goldstein was very funny on Imus.
Matthew Weiner made the same error except that he got it backwards-- he wrote a show called "Mad Men" which was really about "Men Screw."
Who designed the fold-over rear cover features for Mad Magazine?
Who designed the fold-over rear cover features for Mad Magazine?
Al Jaffee designed and drew (draws?) the fold-in inside back cover for MAD.
SCREW magazine was funny...it was the MAD magazine of porn mags.
@kfb: I think that was Al Jaffe.
I loved Mad Magazine when I was growing up (graduated in 1979 - gosh I'm getting old lol). I liked the movie spoofs, the Fold-In, with my most favorite being Spy vs. Spy.
I'm not entirely sure of what he did, but I'm pretty sure that his art had a greater effect on my life and psyche than anything produced by Warhol or, for that matter, Picasso.
Mad was the first magazine I ever subscribed to. Must have been around 1962.
I was amazed by it when I discovered it on the newsstand at Tigue's drugstore, and when I tried to share this amazing discovery with girlfriends I was told that magazine was for boys. I let that embarrass me, but I kept reading the thing nonetheless. Probably abandoned it when they made too much fun of the longhaired rock bands from England that I needed to love.
(They = Mad magazine, not my girlfriends.)
Goldstein, Feldstein, what's the difference?
Reminds me of that Goldberg/iceberg Titanic joke.
Legions of fact checkers, copy editors and proofreaders have been laid off in the New Economy. I'm one of them.
The NYT will be assaulted by Alfred E. Neuman and his band of crazy-MAD friends.
I may have to buy the issue lampooning the NYT.
Mad magazine was for boys. I think I started reading Mad when I was 7 or 8. Sometimes, I had to sit, and really reflect on what they were saying. The pictures helped a lot.
Tiger Beat was for girls. Because it gave them something to gossip about. Peephole (People) magazine does the same today.
Thank you, Mr Feldstein.
Mad magazine was for boys.
My wife would disagree.
The best book on Mad and Gaines is The Mad World of William M. Gaines by contributor Frank Jacobs
Back in the 60s, Gaines took contributors on vacations, once going to Haiti to meet the only person there who subscribed to the magazine. The whole gang of idiots went to the kid's front door.
The best Gaines story? When he testified before a Congressional committee in the 1950s about violence in comics, he was was buzzing on speed which he took to try to lose weight. Here's the transcript...
Inv. Beaser: There would be no limit actually to what you’d put in your magazines?
Bill Gaines: Only within the limits of good taste.
Sen. Kefauver: Here is your May issue. This seems to be a man with a bloody ax holding a woman’s head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that’s in good taste?
BG: Yes, sir, I do, for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the blood could be seen dripping from it, and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody.
(At this, the crowd in the hearing room began to murmur)
Sen. K.: You have blood coming out of her mouth.
BG: A little.
The lovely cover he's referring to is here.
I remember reading MAD magazine in 1976 when I was living in Keflavik. The location is important because that's how I can date things. The issue was about the candidates running for president and I read it in 1976, and Reagan was featured in one section.
Then I chanced upon a MAD magazine in 1980. It was virtually the same issue as the one in 1976 and Reagan was featured in the same article.
I was a bit put off by that laziness.
I loved Mad Magazine too. The spoof on the 1960 political conventions got me interested in politics as entertainment. And so it was from then on.
Mad kept me sane. I too was a child subscriber starting at age 9 in 1961. It was what, $2.50 a year? For the greatest cartoonists of the era!
This Goldstein/Feldstein thing has been bugging me; I now know why. Bringing this back to Ann's lovely longhaired boys from England...
The Strangeloves - I Want Candy - aka Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer - three not-young or lovely New York record producers doing the fake band thing as it's rarely been done before or since.
I'm willing to believe that this was an accidental/intentional inside joke by an editor who is a fan of both Feldstein and Goldstein.
I'm with Biff. Somebody winked while writing or editing.
Porn will always be with us, for we are but frail beings, but humor is a precious creation that elevates our humanity and that must be nurtured, savored and shared.
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