Always a mixed bag with National Lampoon. Today's issue was so-so.
The comics section at the end of the issue is always fantastic. Those are A-list artists at the top of their games as far as I'm concerned.
The stuff in the magazine itself sometimes reflects too much the casual misogyny and racism that was deemed acceptable at the time. It's one of the reasons that, for this project at least, I'm only reading the sequential content of each issue.
I haven't mentioned the covers very much, either for this series or for any of the magazines that I've read. I noticed last night as I was adding yesterday's issue to the database, that the covers of magazines and the covers of comics have a very different design aesthetic. The database I use for my collection (Collectorz.com) allows one to view each listing as a small cover graphic. When I have something like National Lampoon or Heavy Metal sitting next to more traditional comics fare, it's easy to see the difference. But it's not something I'd noticed before.
A few months back I was deep into reading old 50s horror titles and got a crash course from the text features in Tales Too Terrible To Tell, the New England Comics pre-Code reprint series. George Suarez points to Avon Publishing's Eerie as one of the earliest horror comics, but notes that they had paperback artists design the cover, and it looks like it:
I love comics, but I have absolutely no concept of design. So to be able to see these differences is pretty neat for me.
"Ahh...wait, what, what's all dis dark shit?..Where da fuk is I at?!"
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