Alfred E. Neuman isn't going anywhere, says MAD magazine artist from Ojai

Sergio Aragonés drew his way into the pages and margins of MAD magazine in 1962 after he emigrated from Mexico and made money reciting poetry in Spanish.

Still learning English, the then 24-year-old cartoonist pitched drawings and ideas to editors of a magazine dominated by humor that bit, poked and prodded. When they asked for more, Aragonés came back the next day with 20 more ideas and a series of drawings so fresh the ink was barely dry.

He got the gig.

The world-known Ojai artist has drawn in every issue of MAD since except for that one time he traveled to Europe and miscalculated his deadlines. The partnership, he said Wednesday, hasn't ended despite confirmed reports the magazine will no longer be sold on news stands.

"MAD has gone through a lot of changes through the years. It's still there," Aragonès said.

But as of October, the 67-year-old publication that has satirized governments, movies, wars, fads, foods, revolutions, adolescence, death and life itself will print only best-of material in bimonthly issues. Year-end specials will still contain new content.

The news has been greeted by legions of MAD fans as a death knell. Aragonés contends the magazine and gap-toothed cover boy Alfred E. Neuman are still kicking.

"It has to (survive)," the 81-year-old man with the thick handlebar mustache said in an interview conducted on the phone to make it easier for him to draw as he chatted. "You cannot let something so important go. No, no, no. MAD is here to stay."

DC Comics, the magazine's publisher, hasn't issued public statements about MAD's future.

Emphasizing his thoughts are only his opinions, Aragonés thinks magazine leaders need time to figure out how to adjust to a cyberspace-dominated market that heaps pressure on all print publications.

"Everything is changing... They want to do it a new way," he said, speculating the magazine's future could involve quarterly issues, more online content and other ways to reach an audience that views life through a cellphone screen. "We are becoming a nation of viewers instead of creators."

Obsolete or educational?

The latest issue of MAD? The one with the back cover featuring Trump, Vladimir Putin and Alfred E.'s likeness on the Russian leader's buttocks?

No, the EndGame Comics & Collectibles shop in Ventura doesn't have it, doesn't carry MAD and hasn't for years. 

"Every three or four months maybe one person will ask me about it," said store manager Erin Beasley. She called it obsolete, suggesting its focus on politics, pop culture and lifestyle trends runs contrary to what comic book consumers want.

"Real escapism," she said. "Not what's going on in real life."

But the "What me, worry?" slogan, the apocalyptic battles of "Spy vs. Spy" and offbeat takes on pop culture with titles like "Gall in the Family Fare" and "The Oddfather" live on at Sterling Silver Comics in Camarillo.

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When owner Mike Sterling was just learning to read, his uncle gave him a paper bag filled with old issues of MAD.

"That's how I learned about Watergate and hippies," said Sterling who tweeted out his disappointment to the magazine's departure from news stands. "MAD's greatest purpose was in helping kids learn how to sniff out (nonsense) in the world around them. That's something we need now more than ever."

MAD taught Sterling satire. It also taught him how to collect comics. The first comic book he pursued through mail order was a collection of Aragonés' work from MAD.

"I just thought it was the funniest thing in the magazine," he said.

Finding the margins

Aragonés first saw the magazine when he was an architectural student at a Mexico university. He couldn't read English but the drawings spoke to him.

"I went crazy. I had never seen any art as good as that," he said. "I never dreamt in my lifetime I could ever work with them."

He fit right in, part of a crew of contributors so unique their names alone told readers what to expect.

Al Jaffee was the artist and writer behind "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions," a driving force for generations of future smart alecks. Don Martin drew panels that didn't need any words, the gags triggered by interactions of men with massive chins and women with backsides like Kim Kardashian's.

Aragonés peeked into people's psyches with his "The Shadow Knows" comics that suggested the four scholarly men studying an abstract piece in gallery really wanted to gawk at the nude painting hanging next to it.

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His real niche was the margins. Shortly after he started working at MAD, he suggested using his tiny doodles as bonus gags that dot the tops and sides of pages. They replaced word gags tied into pop culture references that often eluded Aragonés, born in Spain and raised in Mexico.

"If I could do cartoons without words, everyone could understand it," he said.

He became a star, reputed to be the world's fastest cartoonists and inducted in the Comic-Con International's Will Eisner Hall of Fame.

So many honors have come his way the National Cartoonists Society named one of its awards for him. The dozens of comic books, strips and anthologies he has created include "Groo the Wanderer" comics about a sword-wielding barbarian. Groo's dog, Rufferto, is named for a Queensland heeler once owned by the cartoonist.

Aragonés moved to Ojai more than 30 years ago so his daughter could attend private Oak Grove School. Nearing 82, he doesn't tweet, doesn't use his cellphone except for phone calls, doesn't surf the website in his name that was created by friends.

What he does is draw. All the time. Starting in late morning and continuing past midnight.

"Sometimes, my wife says 'OK, Sergio, it's time to go to bed,'" he said, laughing. "It's hard to stop when you're having fun."

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Aragonés sees MAD as a way of presenting people's foibles and the world's problems with humor.

"Instead of crying, you laugh at it," he said, suggesting the magazine's influence has reached a swath of humanity that includes politicians lampooned in its pages. "They say, 'They're making fun of me, I better change that.'"

The impact helps explain why Aragonés rejects the speculation the magazine is retiring. There is another reason. When the magazine's art director called to tell him of the changes, there was no farewell, no pink slip, no reason to think nearly six decades in the margins was coming to end.

"They haven't dismissed us or anything," he said, declining to speculate on how long the partnership will continue. "Whatever it lasts, I'll be there."

Tom Kisken covers health care and other news for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tom.kisken@vcstar.com or 805-437-0255.