( CNN ) -- Al Feldstein , who guided Mad magazine for almost three decades as its editor , has died , according to a Montana funeral home . He was 88 . He died Tuesday in his home in Livingston , Montana , Franzen-Davis Funeral Home & Crematory 's website said . Feldstein edited Mad from 1955 to 1984 when the magazine was the most widely read satirical publication in America . He was responsible for bringing on some of the `` Usual Gang of Idiots '' -- the Mad staffers and freelancers who filled its pages with their caricatures , puns and general wackiness . `` We were all saddened to see Al 's passing , '' said John Ficarra , Mad 's current editor-in-chief , in a statement . `` It 's impossible to overstate his importance to Mad . He took over Mad when it was transitioning from comic book to magazine and much of what the nation knows to be as Mad . He attracted many of the talents that went on to become legends -- Don Martin , Al Jaffee , Mort Drucker , Sergio Aragones ... to list just a few of the many . The result of his work in Mad can be seen in a lot of comedy media today . '' Mad , which was started by writer Harvey Kurtzman and part of the EC Comics stable of William M. `` Bill '' Gaines , '' was successful because it called out society 's hypocrisy , Feldstein told the Onion A.V . Club in 2007 . `` When Mad came about , it was the reaffirmation of those feelings in print . We were saying , 'Kids , Madison Avenue is lying to you . Your parents are lying to you . The president is lying to you , ' '' he said . Kurtzman left Mad in 1955 , and Feldstein took over . Under his guidance , the magazine was a no-holds-barred repository of movie parodies , witty verse , advertising take-offs , loopy comics and Al Jaffee 's indescribable Mad Fold-In . Nothing was sacred . `` Mad was wide open . Bill loved it , and he was a capitalist Republican . I loved it , and I was a liberal Democrat , '' Feldstein said . `` That went for the writers , too ; they all had their own political leanings , and everybody had a voice . '' Feldstein was born in 1925 and began his career as an artist as a teenager . He joined EC in the late 1940s . Its founder ( and the inventor of the comic book ) , Max Gaines , had just been killed in an accident , and the struggling company was in the hands of his son , William . `` I went down to meet this nerd with horn-rimmed glasses and a crew-cut named Bill Gaines . And I was with him for 35 years after that , '' Feldstein told the A.V . Club . At the time , EC generally did romance and crime stories . ( Originally , the company aspired to uplift -- the `` EC '' initially stood for `` Educational Comics . '' ) Feldstein , looking for an angle , suggested to Gaines that the company introduce a line of horror comics . They were known for their graphic art , witty writing and shock endings . The first , `` Tales from the Crypt , '' was an immediate hit and EC added a number in the same vein . But the powers that be of the time -- notably fearful politicians and a psychiatrist named Fredric Wertham -- lashed out at EC 's comics and succeeded in having them shut down . Gaines , however , had protected Mad , his humor comic , and changed it to a magazine to keep it out of the claws of the Comics Code Authority . After leaving Mad , Feldstein returned to his first love , art . For decades he lived in Montana , specializing in the images and wildlife of the American West . Mad was sold in the early 1960s to what eventually became Warner Communications . Today the title is part of the DC Comics group owned by Time Warner , CNN 's parent company . Feldstein is survived by his wife ; a stepdaughter ; and two grandsons , the funeral home 's website said . People we 've lost in 2014 .
Al Feldstein , editor of Mad magazine for 29 years , dies at age 88 . - March 3 : The first issue of the British comic book "2000 AD", published by Fleetway, is released in Britain and Ireland. Mad captured society 's cynicism , he said : `` It was the reaffirmation of those feelings in print ''