Alfred E. .... Hitler?

I ran across this fascinating article on Metafilter (warning: link opens up a pdf file) that talks about the origin of Alfred E. Neuman, the face of MAD magazine. According to this author, his first encounter was on an anti-Semitic poster in Nazi annexed-Austria.

Wow. I never realized this. I read more MAD magazines growing up than you can shake a stick at (and I still have most of them, even though they're in pretty bad shape.) I even bought the CD-ROM set of the complete collection of MAD through the years back in 1999 or 2000. It was an integral part of my growing up--I even remember the very first one that I bought--the one with J.R. Ewing on it.

Of course, it's been years since I've actually purchased MAD, and for one thing, I can't get over how ungodly expensive it is now. What was 90 cents growing up is now a whopping $3.50! My how times change.