MAD #1 In The Wild… Early?

Bleeding Cool reported earlier this week that:

Due to an error, today, comic book retailers got the newly relaunched and rebooted MAD Magazine a week earlier than they should have done. And no one realized.

I’ve been contributing to MAD for what will be 18 years this October, and for that entire nearly two decades this has been the release schedule of an issue:

Official Newsstand release date= “Tues the XX of YY”

• Comic Book Shops: For sale the Wednesday BEFORE “Tues the XX of YYr”
• Newsstands: Tues the XX of YY
• iPad: Unpredictable. Sometimes earlier than comic shops, sometimes the week before newsstand
• Mail In subscribers: Mileage may vary, as early as a week before comic books shops, as late as after newsstand date

So, like usual I sauntered into my local comic book shop on the Wednesday before the official newsstand date of the next issue of MAD, and… Voilà! There it was in all it’s eccchy glory! Dozens of kids were gathered around pouring over a copy, guffawing and slapping their knees!

Wait… that last bit might have just been in my head. It might have just been one old white guy bitching that the magazine was in color, didn’t have enough Spiro Agnew jokes in it, and wasn’t nearly as funny as it used to be.

Wait… that might have been in my head too.

Anyway I’ve got my copy. I’m not sure where the mistake happened, but unless Diamond was specifically told not to send the issue out on the usual schedule then this was just a typical release. I’ll post my usual contents on Monday and some additional sneak peeks from my contributions later in the week.