MAD KIDness #1: School Songs!

Pay attention, class! We are taking a quick recess from our chronological review of my work in MAD magazine to have a lesson on some stuff I did for its all-too-brief sister publication, MAD KIDS.

In late 2005, MAD started publishing a second magazine aimed at the grade school “Nickelodeon” market called MAD KIDS. It featured some reprinted content from the MAD archives that was often softed up for younger readers, but also had a lot of new content as well as puzzles and games. There were younger, kid versions of Alfred and Spy vs. Spy, and in general the humor was aimed at the pre-teen crowd. It only lasted 14 issues.

This was the first of only two pieces I ever did for the interior of MAD KIDS, although I did do two covers. This two pager was written by Andrew J. Schwartzberg and appeared in MAD KIDS #3, May 2006.

MAD KIDS was an interesting experiment. It was certainly patterned after Nickelodeon magazine, which was a pretty big seller at that time and one of the few bright spots in magazine publishing in the mid 2000s. I don’t really know why it was cancelled but it’s not a risky guess to think it was poor sales.

Is that the bell? CLASS DISMISSED! Toon in again next week when we shepard in another flock of pages from my work at MAD!