Remember when you used to sneak around reading Mad Magazine when you were a kid because it felt like you were doing something bad? I think it was the grotesque illustrations of oozing pimples, farts, drinking, and sagging cleavage that both intrigued me and made me feel like I was doing something adult and off-limits. It was no Psalty the Singing Songbook, which is what I was normally exposed to. Well, Basil Wolverton was responsible for a lot of those feelings. He drew for Mad in the 50's, but it inspired the gross-out aesthetic of the magazine in its later years. These drawings are so cool and shocking still. Read more about him in the NYT article.
