Mad Magazine editor Al Feldstein dead at 88

(Image credit: Facebook/Mad Magazine)

last updated 8 January 2015

Longtime Mad Magazine editor Al Feldstein has died of undisclosed causes at his home in Montana. He was 88.

An artist, writer, and editor, Feldstein played a pivotal role in the development of iconic and controversial EC Comics series like Tale from the Crypt and Weird Science. But his longest and most enduring tenure was at Mad, where he served as editor from 1955 to 1984. After retiring, Feldstein became an acclaimed nature painter, and earned honors from the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

In a 2007 interview with The A.V. Club, Feldstein described the unlikely beginning of his decades-long career in the publishing industry. "My folks were in the depth of the Depression, and they didn't even have a dime to send me to school," said Feldstein. "I heard that some kid was making 20 bucks a page drawing comic books. Wow, that was a lot of money, and I thought, 'What the hell, I can do that.'"

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Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.