Memorabilia, humor and bring back Spy magazine

Later on, I was contacted by the art director for Scanlans magazine, asking me to supply print humor. They also phoned a fellow named Hunter S. Thompson. Then, The New York Times called to ask me for drawings to print on their newly minted op-ed page — phone calls from the print media looking for humor were a regular thing.

And then, they launched Spy magazine. Nope, I never got phoned for that one, but that was OK because I was a fan. Spy was to reverence what Jack the Ripper was to Mother’s Day — it was gloriously irreverent!

Its humor was a total deflation of pomposity. Although I never quite figured out what a "short-fingered vulgarian" was, I enjoyed it as a reference to Donald Trump.

A continued quoting of their satiric content would not fit into this writing. It was too much of a good thing, and it’s been and gone. Kaput!

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Spy and the National Lampoon, which boasts the creation and staffing of "Saturday Night Live," are no longer published regularly, although the Lampoon offered up some good efforts in humor films.

Mad Magazine is still around as a ghostly apparition of its former self. I was friendly with Bill Gaines — he was the father of Mad Magazine. I joined him for lunch in his office prior to my assignment trip to Moscow and Leningrad. Gaines had been there on his own a few years earlier and I’d been a loner, traveling in Russia on an assignment to write and draw a self-created style called "Investigative Cartooning"©.

He advised caution, since the Russians are security freaks with a level of paranoia that lives in a state of critical mass. But the star of this meeting was not Mr. Gaines. It was the insanity of his office. It was ... Mad!

Gaines collected dirigibles (small ones) and Statues of Liberty. He actually owned one of the terra cotta models originally created by the French in preparation for the real one in New York Harbor. Of course, the giant head of King Kong in a faux window came from the set of the second-filmed Kong version and I couldn’t begin to describe the remaining office clutter.

He complained about his magazine sales. Mad had been dropping in audience age for years and I suspected that eventually it would be sold

Spy magazine lives on in the outrageous style of Comedy Central and other cable stations that have the leeway to present it. Jon Stewart’s "Daily Show" and all of their top- rate spinoff personnel have moved on to the small screen with the likes of Steven Colbert and Lewis Black, but it’s pretty damned "Spyish." (My word creation).

Spy had been the creation of Graydon Carter, a guy who stepped out of that humor racket to become the editor of a successful masterpiece of Condé Nast glitz called Vanity Fair. Carter now hosts Hollywood Oscar parties as opposed to lampooning Hollywood Oscar parties; too bad, he’s sorely missed in his satire role.

I can’t help but wonder what he could do with Paris and Britney and their flash of pubic hair across the media outlets. And juvenile Trumpisms with Rosie O’Donnell would be hilarious in the Spy translation.

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Is it all over for Carter’s satiric skills? Is he far too embedded in red carpets to piss off the establishment again? Maybe so. Hey, he is the establishment now!

Humor is not a complimentary art form and there is no record of Richard Milhaus Nixon sending thank-you notes to the news media that turned him into a Disney character. Maybe print humor is gone because it’s too difficult a minefield to be navigated by the former satirist. Too bad, we lost him after only a handful of satiric years.

Graydon, we hardly knew ye ....