John Hilgart’s 4CP blog takes a detailed look at this amazing cover from the original Mad Magazine.

“Disguised to look like an interior page full of novelty ads, it is so dense with tiny print as to be almost illegible at original printed size. Business matters are handled in two small boxes at the top (with a delightful splash of color), while forty-six novelty ads cover the rest of the space. It is so true to the originals that it parodies that it’s almost indistinguishable from them from more than a foot away.”

We are accustomed to satirical graphic design these days, but I imagine this issue must have confused lots of stockists if not readers.

Hilgart has details of all forty-six ersatz ads in his blog post. I’ve actually written about Hilgart’s vintage comics blogs many times on this blog, and I’ll probably continue to do so as long as he blogs because I’m such a big fan. Even better, he’s just started a version of 4CP on Tumblr.

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