Harvey Kurtzman's classy successor to MAD, available for the first time in a collected edition.

Harvey Kurtzman's 1956 ouster from Mad, the magazine he invented, actually seemed like a lucky break. Less than a year later, he was at the helm of Trump, the most opulent humor publication of its day, with his entire stable of Mad artists in tow.

Trump was made possible through the largesse of Hugh Hefner, who adored Kurtzman's Mad and had enough spillover money from Playboy to offer the editor unlimited funds to re-create the magic. As Kurtzman recalls, "[Hefner]'s attitude was that we didn't have any budget. We'd spend whatever we had to make a magazine, which is as it should have been. I mean, he was very right, and it would have been nice if he could have backed it up, but his intentions were the best."

Basically a classier, more adult version of Mad, Trump was lavished with superior production values, high-quality paper, and enough four-color material to justify its hefty 50-cent cover price. Mad alumni Jack Davis, Will Elder, Russ Heath, Al Jaffee, Wallace Wood, and newcomer Arnold Roth fully understood the significance of the enterprise and handed in some of the most accomplished work of their collective careers. Highlights include Davis movie spoofs ("Tin-Rin-Rin-Tin-Rin" and "Giants") Elder comic-strip counterfeits ("Eti Quette" and "L'l Ab'r"), and Wood's color lampoon of a Disneyized "Hansel and Gretel." The ten-page full-color Sporty Illustrations is Kurtzman's greatest sustained parody, brought to an elevated level of ridiculousness by his colleagues' inspired graphics. Trump seemed destined to stake its claim as the country's preeminent humor magazine.

Yet shortly after issue number 2 went to press, Trump was finished. The official reason was that banks were running scared after Collier's magazine folded and cut back Hefner's line of credit, but insiders have reported that the ultra-perfectionist editor was so late and over budget with the first two issues that he scared Hefner off. Whatever the case, Kurtzman and company gave Trump their best shot while it lasted, and Fantagraphics is proud to present the two-issue set in full regalia.