Mad, Marvel, Maggin, and (Un-)Men.
Pal M.A. Masterson left a comment to yesterday’s post where, aside from correcting my spelling of “potrzebie,” recommended a review of the Mad Magazine board game. His instincts are good; I did indeed own the Mad board game, and, as M.A. says, the object of the game was to get rid of all your money. Alas, the board game is packed away somewhere in the depths of the parents’ garage, along with my other old board games, and I have not yet been able to recover it. However, you can read more about it at Boardgamegeek, which has lots and lots of photos of the board and of box covers from many lands.
I also want to find that box o’games, because I desperately want to recover my copy of the Greatest Board Game of All Time, The Sinking of the Titanic. But I digress.
Anyway, what I do have is the Mad Magazine Card Game, published by Parker Brothers in 1979:
Similar to the board game, the object is lose all of the cards in your hand, while forcing your opponents to acquire more cards.
The card faces all feature artwork by Jack Davis:
The numbered cards feature sequential gags (I left a couple out in this particular sequence to fit ’em on the scanner):
Don’t really have much more to say about it than that…Boardgamegeek has more pics, plus more foreign editions.
Hey, remember when I used to talk about comics on this site, once in a while?
- I’ve been meaning to praise the World War Hulk mini-series event Marvel’s been running. I’m not following all the crossovers, but the concurrent Front Line mini has been reasonably entertaining as well. Tim O’Neil has a few words about how surprised he is that he’s actually enjoying a Marvel series, and I can’t disagree with anything he says.
The big problem, of course, is how the series will wrap up in the Mighty Marvel “Status Quo – Successfully Maintained” Manner, since the Hulk 1) won’t be kicked off Earth for good, and 2) won’t be killed…oh, and 3) won’t conquer the Earth and become the ruler of the entire planet, as much fun as that might be. Or it might go the Civil War route, with a anticlimactic ending that simply leads into yet more crossover event fun. The book’s been pretty solid so far, though, so I’m not entirely without hope that we may, possibly, get some kind of reasonable resolution to the story. (Which will seemingly involve the Sentry, a character I didn’t have time for before, but has been used to interesting effect thus far in this series.)
Other people have noted that you can’t really go wrong with Hulk Smashing, particularly right now, as it’s been a while since we’ve had a good old fashioned readable Marvel-style melee. Plus, there’s a bit of catharsis to it as well, as Hulk is laying a beat down on the heroes that Marvel has invested a lot of time and effort over the last year or so in getting the readers to actively dislike. An odd publishing strategy, I suppose, making readers hate your headliners (and a couple second stringers), but it worked out for the World War Hulk series.
And there’s John Romita Jr. art. I love Romita Jr. art, but he so rarely draws anything I’d want to read. I think the last thing he drew that I read and enjoyed was Frank Miller’s Daredevil: The Man without Fear mini in ’93, so it’s been a bit of a dry spell for me.
I’ll also note that the comic is selling enormously well at the shop…the central mini-series is, at any rate, with only a slight bump on the crossovers, while the tie-in minis are solid mid-range sellers.
- Former comics writer Elliot S! Maggin is running for Congress in California. And, by the way, I live in his district, so I can vote for him. Not sure if it’ll do any good…the incumbent has been there since, it seems, California first became a state. But, if I have to choose between that guy and the guy who wrote this comic…well, I know where my loyalties lie.
- The first issue of Swamp Thing spin-off The Un-Men comes out this week. If you don’t buy it, you’ll make a Mikester cry. And surely you don’t want that.
