The first comic I got ahold of cover-dated with my birthday was
MAD 78 (how I got it I don't recall). And I was surprised as a regular MAD reader from 1972-1977, that even in April 1963 they already had the line-up of artists and writers I was familiar with: Mort Drucker, Al Jaffee, Don Martin, Dave Berg, Antonio Prohias, Sergio Aragones...
And it was a fun glimpse at the 1963 popular culture world I wasn't old enough to have been around to see. I especially liked Al Jaffee's rendering of "chess for the modern era" with nuclear missiles. Plus a New England prep-school primer for college students, and a very East-West cold war dominating theme to much of the issue's contents.
MAD is wonderful that way. Any given issue is a time capsule of what was prevalent in the culture at that time, whether movies, television, celebrities, wars, news or politics.
