Stahling For Fun

Yesterday we saw some early comics from two of MAD Magazine's famous Usual Gang Of Idiots, Al Jaffee's Inferior Man and Dave Berg's Death Patrol. I ended the posts teasing another connection between the two strips.

That connection? Al Stahl.

After Jaffee and Berg moved on from those comics, Stahl went MAD on them and added a new level of insanity to both comics. If you recall Inkie, you know he was qualified for crazy.

Inferior Man moved from Military Comics over to Feature Comics with Al Stahl at the helm -

As mentioned yesterday, Death Patrol ended with Berg's final strip in Military Comics #12. It returned nine issues later with Gill Fox doing the first of the new strips, and Al Stahl taking over immediately after. It's still war time for the Death Patrol, but things keep getting stranger...

Death Patrol's creator returned for a stint in the middle of Stahl's run. That's worth returning for, eh?

page art by Al Stahl from Military Comics #s 26 & 34 and Feature Comics #s 65-67, 70, & 71 (1943, 1944)

Father Of Five?

How's everybody holding up with Trump Flu in the air? I apparently went into a brief coma for hibernation and woke to find it snowing outside the cave. The calendar says i was only down for a day or so, but it sure feels longer.

Anyway, i'm up and fairly functional and we'll be getting two related posts today. 

Back in the days before MAD Magazine, the Usual Gang Of Idiots still had to eat. What to do while you're waiting for your home to be built?

Al Jaffee is a name most of you likely know. Not only a long, long time member of the gang, but also creator of the iconic Mad Fold-Ins. And when i say Creator, i don't just mean he invented the concept, he also created nearly all of the monthly fold-ins for over half a century. Quite a feat of brain-bending that.

Back in 1941 in the pages of Military Comics, the superior artist brought us the Inferior Man -

As you can see, Inferior Man started out fairly deranged. In time, he would become outright surreal.

But first, let's take a look at another of the Usual Gang who was hanging out in the pages of Military Comics with Al. We'll be back with another post in a few hours.

page art by Al Jaffee for Military Comics #s 7, 8, 10, 11, & 13 (1941, 1942)