allowed for the reproduction of much more finely detailed artwork. It included meticulously rendered advertisement parodies and text pieces by humorists such as Ernie Kovacs, Stan Freberg, and Steve Allen. The paperback book market boomed in the 1950s, and in 1954 Ian Ballantine approached Gaines with a paperback Mad reprint deal. Gaines was reluctant, as he was not impressed with the terms Ballantine offered, but Kurtzman was eager and convinced Gaines to accept. Unlike most comic-book publishers, EC archived artwork after initial publication. This allowed the material to be recycled, and Ballantine Books published the Kurtzman-edited Mad Reader that November with an introduction by comedian Roger Price. The book became a perennially good seller along with four others Kurzman was involved with: Mad Strikes Back! (1955), Inside Mad (1955), Utterly Mad (1956), and The Brothers Mad (1958). The books were reprinted frequently and sold millions of copies—The Mad Reader alone was reprinted five times in 1955, each with six-figure pressings. While he stayed with EC, Gaines paid Kurtzman 25% of the royalties for the books, and another 25% to the artists, though he was under no contractual obligation to do so. The cover of The Mad Reader featured an unnamed gap-toothed character whose face soon reappeared in a fake mail-order catalogue advertisement that was the cover to Mad #21. He reappeared on the back of April 1956 issue #27 with the slogan: "What—me worry?" The image was an enlargement of a postcard Kurtzman had found, and his name changed from issue to issue—Melvin Coznowski in one, Mel Haney in another—even the "What—Me Worry?" kid. It was Feldstein who named him Alfred E. Neuman in issue #29—a joke name that EC writers had occasionally used—and the cult character went on to appear on nearly every cover of Mad. Financial restrictions meant color was eliminated in favor of larger pages and nearly double the page count that the comic book had. The page count allowed for a greater variety of features, such as one-pagers, parodies of advertisements, and text pieces. Kurtzman's own art contributions diminished under the increased editorial workload; he did create the border artwork that adorned several years' worth of the magazine's covers, as well as the logo that still is used. The magazine-format Mad expanded its range of parody subjects to magazine-style articles, such as a do-it-yourself article in the style of Popular Mechanics, a send-up of the "Photo