Who's Out There?

« Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish. » — Steven Wright

In 1974, prodigious underground cartoonist Rick Griffin was commissioned to design a cover for Welsh rockers Man’s ninth opus… and this is what he came up with.

While the image of the grinning fool popularly known as Alfred E. Neuman was, and remains in the public domain, Griffin was really pushing his luck, even without MAD Magazine’s distinctive typeface on bold display. Let’s just say William M. Gaines’ lawyers had far more than a leg to stand on.

Understandably reluctant to let such a lovely *and* provocative work of prime Griffin altogether go to waste, Man (and their legal counsel, presumably), engineered a clever and elegant design solution, shown below, which graces the band’s Slow Motion album, issued in late 1974, and still thumbs its nose at MAD Magazine, exceptionally cast in the thankless rôle of the fuddy-duddy villain.

However, here’s an account — circa 2023 — I recently discovered that casts the matter in a whole new light: « John Peel made ‘Day and Night‘ his Single of the Week in Sounds, but it was the album cover that attracted most comment. American counterculture artist Rick Griffin had come up with a design that prominently featured Mad magazine character Alfred E. Neuman, only for the cover to be subsequently cropped so that Mad’s cover boy was merely a peripheral presence. For years it was claimed that Mad had refused permission for Neuman to be shown, but it now appears they had actually given tacit verbal approval, and that it was the record company, United Artists, who made an executive decision to censor the design without contacting the magazine. »

This illuminating bit appears in David Wells’ (of Cherry Red Records) exhaustively researched — and exquisitely written — liner notes to Grapefruit Records’ Patterns on the Windows: The British Progressive Pop Sounds of 1974 boxed set. Recommended, as is the rest of this chronological series.

As a born-again Christian (circa 1970) *and* surfer, it follows that fish were, topic-wise, a natural fit for Griffin.

A painting from Griffin’s foremost undertaking of the 1970s, « The Gospel of John » (available to this day!); this one illustrates John 21:6, « And he said unto them, cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They case therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. »

For the record, I prefer my fish alive and swimming free.

– RG