From a COMICS JOURNAL interview:
http://www.tcj.com/gahan-wilson/2/GEHR: Mad magazine started around the same time as your cartooning career. What was your take on it when it launched in 1952?
WILSON: I was good friends with Harvey Kurtzman later on, but there was a hokiness about it that didn’t appeal to me. The humor wasn’t edgy enough for me. It had some good slapstick. But the outfit I fit in with instantly, was National Lampoon. That was a remarkable assemblage of brilliant sons of bitches. Its spirit was insidious. It was like being part of a pirate crew. We were like some kind of religious sect. We were out to show the bastards, by God, and we did, very effectively. I just wish something like that would happen again. But there’s no sign of it whatsoever, even though things are much worse now than they were then.
Which explains why he didn't contribute to MAD.
A perception that MAD weren't willing to publish the kind of material Gahan Wilson wanted to do.
Although, with a knowledge of the iconoclastic work MAD published for decades, I find it hard to believe MAD wouldn't be willing to publish any material Wilson might offer. I mean, MAD published stuff ridiculing political leaders, portraying cops as pigs, dope-smoking hippies, sexual material, and everything in between.
Maybe in the early 1950's Kurtzman-edited days of MAD as a comic book MAD might have been too tame. But by the 1960's, certainly MAD as a maagazine had become willing to explore any issue. In fact, that was precisely the reason it ended its run as a comic book and became a magazine.
