Also in 1952 there was an attempt to form a comic book artists
union. This was spear headed by artist Bernie Krigstein. He was one of
the few artists of this period that viewed comic book art as serious
art, equal to sculpture, fine art and so on. Krigstein and the others on the
executive managed to get a lot of artists to show up (in part to
advertising FREE BEER at the meetings). The large gatherings also got
the publishers interested and they would show up as well. From there the reaction
to the union idea was mixed. Krigstein wanted the artists to become an
actual union and go on strike if they need be. He also wanted minimum
page rates, believing it would stop freelancers from under cutting each other for work.
He believed publishers would try to hire the better artists if they had to pay a minimum page rate.
This idea appealed to many young artists who were just starting out, but the good veteran artists did
not like the idea. They were already getting good page rates and plenty
of work and didn’t want younger, lesser artists getting the same
amount.
Also discussed was the philosophy of what comic book artists were and
ought to be. Krigstein had called the organization Society of
Comic Book Illustrators (SOCBI), specifically because he thought the term
'Comic Book Illustrators' would garner them more respect with society than 'Comic Book Artists.'
Krigstein also thought that comic book pencilers like himself should have the most sway in how a story
is told. Showing up to these meetings was Robert Kanigher, a DC editor
that held an almost opposite view. He told the crowd that they were
indeed illustrators and not "artists" saying it was merely their job to
illustrate the story given to them. It was his belief that comic books
started with words. This was the point of view at DC Comics for many
years, as many editors there believed they were the true authors of the
stories. The writers & artists were seen as merely extensions of
the editors, hired hands to fulfill their needs.
By 1953 the Union fell apart. Many within the group wanted the group to be more of a social club that was on good relations with publishers. Important to know that during this period, Communists were marching the streets waving flags as were Unions when they were protesting. Many Americans began believing that Unions were Communists. At the time a popular Senator McCarthy was coming down hard against Communists, particularly in the Entertainment industry. The comic artists didn’t want to tarred with the same brush. Also many of the artists grew up in the great depression and were quite grateful for the work they had. They saw their time doing comic books as a stepping stone to higher paid work as syndicated comic strip artists, magazine illustrators, fine artists or something else. They did not take their comic book work seriously as a work of art. Some of the Union executives and board members took offers of steady work at good page rates by publishers and left the Union.
Bernie Krigstein would eventually move on to EC Comics. There he got more freedom and drew one of their best stories called Master Race (Impact Comics #1 - 1955). It was about a Nazi concentration camp commander accidentally running into a Jewish survivor that had sworn revenge on him. This was very strong stuff at the time as there were very few stories in any medium that acknowledge the full atrocities of the death camps. As time went along, biographies from actual Nazi commanders working in those death camps would prove how accurate Master Race was. Despite this Krigstein would never get to do what he really wanted, a full comic book to himself to tell a great story. He would beg his publishers saying he wanted to give them Shakespeare but the most he was able to finagle was 8 pages for Master Race. It would take many years before what Krigstein wanted to become permitted by publishers in the industry. Many of his fans cringe that Krigstein never got what he wanted as he was clearly very talented storyteller and a head of his time.
Did you Know? - Among the other things Krigstein wanted was the return of the original art to the artists. This would eventually become standard within the industry as well. But during this period the original art was often cut up, discarded and/or given away to anybody but the artist. Today they are expensive one of a kind collectable's.
Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad #1 first appeared in October
1952. Both owner William Gaines and creator Harvey Kurtzman claim to
have come up with the idea to do this comic. Whoever is correct, the
reason for the title is pretty clear. Because Harvey was meticulous
(and slow) with his War titles he wasn't making much money doing them.
This title was created so Harvey could make more money as William
assumed comedy came quick and easy to Harvey. This title almost didn't
make it as the first 3 issues of the book lost money. The 4th issue was
saved by Superman and Captain Marvel, sorta. The lead feature of issue
#4 was a story called Superduperman and made fun of the legal battle
between DC and Fawcett over their main superheroes. Making fun of pop
culture then became the focus of this title.
Up until now parody and satire was mainly aimed at adult readers, Tales Calculated to Drive you Mad would successfully exposed it to kids. While the parody was never mean spirited, it didn’t pull any punches when it came to exaggerating real quirks or flaws in people or commercial properties. It was also done during a time authority figures took themselves very seriously. The book ruffled the feathers of politicians and parent groups across the United States, which only pleased the creators and gave them inspiration to continue. It would also please the young readers as Mad would show them that nothing is infallible. Many suggest this comic would influence a generation of kids that would question and defy authority figures, becoming hippies and anti-war protestors.
Harvey Kurtzman was given an offer to work for Pageant Magazine,
a sophisticated publication aimed at adults. He told Bill Gaines about the offer and Gaines made him
a counter offer to turn Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad into an adult magazine format. When they
changed the format they also changed the title to a much simpler Mad
with issue #24. This change would save the series and the EC company when all of their other
comic book titles would be rejected by wholesalers and newsstands as a result of the forming of the
Comic Book Code Authority. EC Comics distributor Leader News then went bankrupt owing them huge sums
of money. Gaines considered declaring EC bankrupt as well and let his entire staff go. But Harvey Kurtzman convinced Bill Gaines and his family to use their personal finances
to keep Mad Magazine afloat and they got American News Company to distribute it.
Hugh Hefner then contacted Harvey Kurtzman and offered him the
opportunity to create a high scale humor magazine for him. Harvey wanted to accept, but after
recently convincing the Gaines family to pay off their large debts to keep Mad Magazine going he
didn't feel right about quitting on them. Kurtzman then purposely got himself fired by demanding
that Gaines hand over 51% of the Mad Magazine ownership and control to him. When Kurtzman left for
Hefner he took most of Mad Magazine's artists and staff with him. Gaines then went to Al Feldstein
and asked him if he would come back to work for him and if he had any ideas about what they could
do together. Feldstein convinced Gaines to keep publishing Mad. Feldstein took over Mad, completing
issue #28, initiating his editorship with issue #29 and adopted and christened MAD's mascot/trademark
Alfred E. Neuman with issue #30. Harvey
Kurtzman would work for Hefner putting out Trump magazine but Hefner was losing money on other
ventures and killed the magazine shortly after its second issue.
Mad would eventually be bought by Premier Corporation, who quickly sold it to Lionel Corporation, then they quickly sold it again to DC Comics. One wonders why Bill Gaines would sell MAD Magazine. Al Feldstein gives us the inside scoop:
In the late '50's and early 60's, the U. S. still had a "Progressive Income Tax"... left over from
WW II.
There were no "million dollar an episode" payouts... or "10 million dollar a year" CEO's... or
"five million dollars a movie" stars!
Incomes were taxed "progressively" as they went higher. If you made, say, $100,000 a year, your
top income dollars were taxed at over 85%...past 100K, each dollar more was maybe taxed into the 90
percentiles.
In 1959 (give or take a year or so), I had a good handle on MAD... had increased its sales from
the shaky 350,000 quarterly when I took it over... and it was now selling around 500,000 six times
a year.
Corporate income taxes had been paid, but ...
...a surplus of a little over a million dollars had built up in the company treasury.
So...the IRS paid Bill Gaines a visit...and decreed: Either he re-invest the million into
corporate expansion (i.e. more titles) or he had to declare it as a dividend to the stockholders.
(The IRS, of course, wanted the ordinary dividend income to be taxed again!)
Well, Bill and his Mother and his Sister were the sole stockholders...and they each already had a
large income, thanks to Max Gaines selling out his share of All-American Comics to his partners at
D.C. for a huge sum, which was prudently invested in income producing entities!
Which meant that 85 to 90% of the million dollars would be paid out by the family as
Income Tax...and they'd be left with about $5000 each.
But then, their hot-shot Accountant presented them with a solution to their dilemma:
Sell MAD Magazine to a company that has a "tax loss"!
Present that company with a "gift" sale of a successful magazine...MAD...for a million dollars
down...and a scheduled pay-out toward the sale price..something absurd...like, say, five million
dollars!
No skin off their company's nose. No cost to them. And a yearly income if the magazine survives.
The million dollar down payment (which was already in the company treasury!) would be taxed as a
Capital Gain to the Gaines family!
Only 30 or 35%!
Not 85-90%!
And the balance of the sale price...the future payments toward the four million dollars owed...
would also be taxed as a Capital Gain...at 30 or 35%!
So Bill went for it!
Why?
I guess a bird in the hand is worth fifty in the bush.
Or maybe he never really believed in MAD...or in my ability to make it grow into the publishing
phenomenon it became.
So MAD was sold to a Textile Machinery Manufacturer with a large tax loss named Premier
Corporation...which later sold it to Lionel Corporation (Roy M. Cohn, CEO)...which later sold it to
National Comics-D.C. (Liebowitz, Donnenfeld and Sampliner, CEO's)...which was taken over by Warner
Communications...now AOL Time Warner.
And MAD went on, under my Editorship, to reach a sales high of 2,800,000 -- eight times a
year...with eleven Foreign Editions...250 Paperback reprint and original titles... four Annuals...and
some wild merchandising.
And a five million dollar "Capital Gains" deal turned out to be "peanuts" compared to what the MAD
cash cow produced for Warners over the years since its sale!
And...I am certain...Bill Gaines secretly kicked his ass for his grab-the-money-much-too-early
mistake.
Al Feldstein would retire as Mad Magazine's editor on December 31st, 1984. Mad inspired a lot of imitations by a variety of publishers, the most successful of them is Cracked. Today Mad is a very famous magazine and has a TV show based on it.
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