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VIRTUAL PROGRAM
Coming of Age with MAD
Coming of Age with MAD
September 28, 2024 at 3:00 pm
$10, Members free
Join Steve Brodner, co-curator of What, Me Worry?: the Art and Humor of MAD Magazine for an illustrated talk about political satire, the art of caricature and Brodner’s reflections on his formative experience growing up reading MAD magazine. The presentation will touch on the many ways MAD Magazine with its rich mix of satire, anti-establishment critique, and irreverent humor helped shape the ethos of an entire generation and set Brodner on his path to becoming one of the nation’s foremost political cartoonists.
Steve Brodner is an illustrator, caricaturist, journalist, author, educator, lecturer, and political commentator, He is a regular contributor to The Nation, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. His work has also appeared in most of the major magazines and newspapers in the United States, including Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, and The Atlantic. His weekly newsletter, The Greater Quiet, can be found at stevebrodner.substack.com.
ONLINE SYMPOSIUM:
The Usual Gang of Idiots and Other Suspects: MAD Magazine and American Humor
Zoom Webinar (online)
Friday, October 18 from 6pm to 8pm
Saturday, October 19 from 10am to 3:30pm
Join us for this lively exploration of the art and history of MAD—the long-running humor magazine and counter-culture touchstone that has attracted readers and spoken truth to power for more than seven decades. MAD’s unique brand of subversive humor, as well as its evolution and impact, will be discussed by illustrators, cartoonists, editors, writers, historians, and collectors whose deep knowledge of the subject and personal contributions have sustained the magazine’s legacy over time.
The program is organized in conjunction with What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine at the Norman Rockwell Museum, on view until October 27, 2024.
Sam Viviano
Hijinks on the High Seas, 2022
Illustration for “Hijinks on the High Seas!” by John Ficarra, MAD #28, December 2022
Ink and Dr. Martin’s Dyes on Bristol board
Collection of Sam Viviano
EVENTS | VIEW ALL
NEWS | VIEW ALL
‘CBS Sunday Morning News’ features ‘What, Me Worry?’
Nestled the rolling hills of rural Massachusetts, swathed by manicured grounds, sits the Norman Rockwell Museum. And there, side-by-side with the wholesome works of America's most beloved illustrator, is the world's dumbest cover boy: Alfred E. Neuman. "It's sacrilegious! It's an outrage!" laughed political cartoonist Steve Brodner. "But I do think if Norman Rockwell were here, he'd laugh his head off. He'd think this was fantastic." These hallowed halls are now home to the world's largest exhibit of artwork from Mad Magazine, co-curated by Brodner. "I was formed by Mad," he said. "My idea of comedy, humor, irreverent drawing comes from this."
‘Smithsonian Magazine’ Reviews ‘Mad Magazine’
STOCKBRIDGE, MA – September 17 – In March 1976, a great American portrait debuted to an adoring public. It was a bicentennial appreciation of George Washington … of a sort. Inspired by The Athenaeum Portrait, Gilbert Stuart’s 1796 painting featured on the one-dollar bill, this rendering of the first president featured one distinction. The original showed Washington with swollen, tightly closed lips due to a new set of ill- fitting dentures, while the 1976 version had a gap-toothed smirk instantly recognizable to America’s middle school reprobates. Equally recognizable was the blank stare that those same kids knew evoked the iconic question: “What, Me Worry?”
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Land Acknowledgement
It is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are learning, speaking and gathering on the ancestral homelands of the Mohican people, who are the indigenous peoples of this land on which the Norman Rockwell Museum was built. Despite tremendous hardship in being forced from here, today their community resides in Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We pay honor and respect to their ancestors past and present as we commit to building a more inclusive and equitable space for all.