MAD # 4, Possessing

In the 7th Grade fellow student, Archie Richardson, introduced me to MAD #4. 

Archie lived next door to my grandmother and aunt.  As my parents visited my mother's family I visited Archie, sitting on the floor in his bedroom looking at his comic book collection.  I came across a comic book I never heard of:  MAD.  MAD was published by E.C. Publishing, the same that bought us TALES FROM THE CRYPT, and other horror comic books.

I instantly felt an  connection to MAD.  I was looking at MAD #4.   It did not take me long to figure out how to buy all the back issues from the publisher and subscribe.  Luckily, I was a young preteen with means (I  had a paper route).

There was a kid, about a year or two older, who lived on Alexander Circle, about three blocks away, that I heard we had a mutual admiration for MAD.  He heard it too, and visited me.  After going through my comicbook collection he said he wanted my MAD #4, that was the only MAD he did not have.  I turned him down.  He begged and offered several dollars for it.   I turned him down flatly.  

Although we had a mutual taste I decided I didn't care for this kid.  He thought he had more of a right to my comic book than I.  I think he felt he was better than me.  Which might be true, but being better did not give him more rights.

A day or two later my old time friend Jimmy Pat Presley visited me.  He wanted to look through my comics and swore he would not steal anything.  Did I mention Jimmy Pat was a notorious shoplifter?  And he lived only about 3 or 4 houses from the guy that wanted the MAD #4?

Needless to say after Jimmy Pat left I was no longer in possession of MAD #4.  As usual, I searched Jimmy Pat when he left and I thought he was clean, but somehow he out foxed me.

I went to visit the kid that wanted that comic so bad and suddenly he had it.  I told him that was mine.  He denied it.  He said he bought it from another collector.  It was my word against his.

Beware of Collectors when you own something they think they deserve more.

I have MAD#4 in two different forms now:  CD, and part of a hardbound volume.   I survived.

Beware of people.