Back to Square One
Mad wasn’t always a magazine full of satire and parody. It started out, back in October of 1952, as an
oddball comic book full of rather silly adventure stories. The first two issues each contained four such
stories, and the titles of those eight stories can be found in the crossword grid on the next page. The
introduction to each title can be seen below. When you’ve completed the puzzle, transfer the numbered
letters to the spaces below the grid to get a clue to a five letter word. Answer, page 16.
6-Across
Terror Dept.! Please! We warn you! Do not read this story! Throw this comic book away be-
fore it is too late!... Very well, rash fool! Read on! But remember! We warned you! There are
many things not meant for the eyes of man! Ooohheeeheeeheee...
30-Down
Science-Fiction Dept.! Go forward! Go forward into space, forward into time! Go forward...
1952! 1962! 1982! Go! Go to 1,000,000 A.D.! That’s far enough! Back up a little! Look! The
Earth! A mass of steely cities and men! Men? No! Not really men! More like...
44-Down
Crime Dept.! Come away from your fresh paint homes on tree-lined streets!... Away from your
clean linen, your grade-A milk! Come to the garbage-canned, broken windowed land of the
underworld! Come to the home of gangsters, gorillas, and...
1-Down
Western Dept.! Gimme a drink, Joe, an’ let me tell you a story ‘bout the rootinest, tootinest,
straightest shootinest cowpoke ever to ride the Pecos Trail! You see... when he made up
his mind to do somethin’, he didn’t change easy... an’ what he made up his mind to do wuz...
to kill a...
29-Across
Terror Dept.: There are many things going on in the world that are very strange... that have
no explanation! Many things in many phases of life... even in the game of baseball! There are
the superstitions, the beliefs in the unnatural, the beliefs in the...
36-Down
Jungle Dept.: Africa! Wild... untamed land where time stands tangled in the jungle! Africa!...
Home of the fierce Gmowgli pygmies... the terrible Ngambwali cannibals, and the horrible
Ookaballakonga head hunters! Also home to the jungle apeman... an apeman named...
59-Across
Science Fiction Dept.: Night! A mighty, gleaming space-ship swoops gracefully out of the
starry sky making a gentle landing on the Nevada sands! Inside, Glarf Merfnick, Martian, sits,
shaking and haggard from his escape from the...
34-Across
Crime Dept.! All you out there who aspire to be criminals... You who follow the paths of evil!
This story is for you!... The story of a fellow who dug his way into bank vaults... who dug his
way out of jails... and who wound up in the electric chair!... Fellow by the name of Melvin...