Mad in Orbit

by William M. Gaines (Editor), MAD Magazine

Take a "Way-Out" look at our "square" world and explore some amazing modern phenomena The Ballyhooed Launchings, The Process of Lift Off, The State of Weightlessness, The Millions of Luminous Particles.

Genres: Humor, Comedy, Graphic Novels, Comics

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1962

Reviews

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mad's best decades were arguably the 1960s and 1970s, but the magazine started in the 1950s. This paperback collection consists of pieces that were originally published from the magazine in 1958 and 1959. Mad's original target audience was college-age men and recent grads, so expect a good bit of sexism here.

There was a little racism, if I read the article right (hey, I'm a woman -- I probably am just jumping to conclusions about what the squinty eyes and buckteeth meant) and a bit of the grotesque in the Mad First Aid guide, so I knocked a star off for that.

The 1950s Mad relied more on text than comics or visuals than in later decades. Parodies of magazine ads and business magazines had really small print, so the jokes got old fast. Some jokes about car tail fins were repetative.

I was surprised that over half of the book was still pertinent in 2025 ... such as:

* the omniprescence of credit cards
* a look at Little League
* business owners taking advantage of their workers
* Jack and Jill showing up in far more magazines than you can shake a mailman at
* Dennis the Menace written by Edgar Allan Poe
* yet another parody of the Peanuts comic strip ... hey, this may have been the first.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reasonably funny broad comedy! A little too much slapstick injury humor for my tastes but nothing too gross. It's an interesting time capsule besides. Overall, I liked it.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

even though the it was written in 1962 it's still funny as ever