The Art of Harvey Kurtzman (Abrams), by Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle

Nowadays, pop-culture parody is everywhere. But when MAD magazine began in 1952, it was a radical break with the mainstream. As the man behind MAD, cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman could be called the grandfather of "The Simpsons." More directly, he helped Robert Crumb and Terry Gilliam get started. Milwaukee expatriate underground cartoonist Denis Kitchen and Brown University historian Paul Buhle trace Kurtzman's inspiration to his precarious Jewish childhood in an anti-Semitic America, the politics of the Great Depression and the opportunities afforded by the New Deal. The widespread influence of MAD probably planted more seeds for the '60s counterculture than Elvis.