MAD #12 News

ComingSoon.net just posted a peek at the cover (see above, art by Mark Fredrickson) and some of the contents of the upcoming MAD #12, saying that the issue “targets the television industry”. MAD has been posting small sneak peeks of the contents of MAD #12 on their Instagram page .

A lot of people are highly curious about this issue because it is really the first of the “new” MAD with the mix of “classic material” along with some new content that we have been told is the new norm. How much new content? What kind of classic material? No one has been very specific. This issue will answer a lot of those questions.

The Comingsoon.net features lists the following as “new” content in the issue:

• “Boob Tube Mashups” by Brockton McKinney and Kerry Callen
• Spy vs. Spy (Peter Kuper)
• “That’s Advertainment” – Giving platforms like Uber, Postmates and others a streaming service
• “Deadliest Carts” – a shopping cart spoof of Deadliest Catch
• More RuPaul Drag shows on VH-1 (I did the art on this one)
• A MAD look at TV, by Sergio Aragones (this is incorrect. This piece is a reprint from way back, but colorized. Sergio does have a new piece in this issue, a one page “The Shadow Knows”)
• “Meanwhile,” by Ian Boothby and Pia Guerra

I just got my contributor copies the other day, and actually saw a mock up in the MAD offices in Burbank about three weeks ago when I was in town. I can’t post the full contents until the issue’s release date of February 19th, but here are a few facts about this and upcoming issues I can safely share:

First, each regular issue will follow a theme. #12’s theme is “television”. Future issues follow similar themes.

Some of the classic material is published in its original black and white. Some of it has been colorized, either partly or completely, like this Jack Davis piece MAD posted a peek of on their Instagram:

Of the 60 potential pages of content (cover, inside cover, pages, inside back cover, back cover), 13 pages contain new content/art in the traditional MAD sense, including the cover. The table of contents and the letters pages add 4 more “new” pages. There is one new ad page. That’s a total of 17 pages that have never been seen in a MAD issue. The other 43 pages are classic reprinted material, all with a television theme. One of my TV color parodies are part of the reprint contents.

There you have it. a 28.33% “new content” rate, although MAD lists this as “21.4285% new material” on the cover. I’m sure it will fluctuate here and there, but that’s probably a good estimate as to future issues.