THE THIRTY YEARS' CRISIS: ANXIETY and FEAR in the MID-CENTURY United States

In 1952, Bill Gaines, the entrepreneurial comic book publisher, embarked on a new venture. He had already made a name for himself by introducing the horror comics (Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Terror) that had rapidly acquired an eager readership. Those titles summoned up repressed aspects of postwar culture, reveling in sadism, sexual infidelity, and grisly torture. But the id knows many pathways, and in 1952 Gaines launched a humor magazine called Mad. The title was a celebration of unreason. As its icon, Mad boasted Alfred E. Neuman, a grinning half-wit who lived by the mantra, What, me worry?.