Saving MAD?
To misquote Mark Twain:
“The report of MAD‘s death have been greatly exaggerated”
Many news outlets are reporting that MAD is done as of issue #10. That is not the case, and my post yesterday made it very clear that the magazine would continue to publish with issue #11, but would feature new cover art and interiors with reprinted classic material as opposed to all new material. News stand distribution will stop, and the magazine will only be available through current subscriptions and via the direct market (i.e. comic book shops). That is all 100% confirmed as of this writing.
That said, these officially stated plans going forward for MAD may not necessarily be set in stone. I have read some reports about a possible annual edition with all new content, although that is NOT confirmed or official in any way. There is nothing that says SOME new content may not find its way into the regular issues. Who knows? Maybe they’ll have a new movie or TV parody in each issue? An original Fold-in? Sergio’s “A MAD Look at…”? Again, NONE OF THIS IS OFFICIAL… in fact it’s all speculation on my part. I can certainly see a MAD going forward with a combination of some new and some classic content. It would need a much smaller staff and have overhead substantially streamlined, especially without the burden of newsstand distribution costs.
So, how can you help make that happen? The outpouring of sadness about the lack of new content in MAD has been overwhelming, but most of it has been of this variety:
“I’m so sad to hear MAD is no longer going to be publishing original content. The end of an era. I haven’t bought an issue in years.”
-A lot of MAD fans
That last bit is the problem. If you want to see MAD continue on in some capacity with new content, go out and buy it. Issue #8 in on the stands right now. Go to your local comic book shop and place an order for #9, or be sure you pick it up on the newsstands when it comes out (that will be the last one on newsstands). Money talks, especially with big corporations who have shareholders looking over their shoulders. Let DC know via social media or whatever that you want to see the magazine continue. Numbers also talk.
MAD is a valuable brand for DC and anything that makes it more valuable will get some attention. I think MAD is a more valuable brand if it is actively publishing new content, especially if that content is garnering media attention and acclaim. If the corporate overlords also think that, then we get a MAD with new content.
So go on out there and show DC we want MAD. If nothing else, do it for Al Jaffee. He tells me he was just getting the hang of this fold-in thing.
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#savemadmagazine
Michael Gerber
21 hrs
You would think the Trump Era would be salad days for something like MAD. You’d be wrong. Corporate publishing is susceptible to censorship, especially self-censorship. The bigger the parent company, the bigger the vulnerability.
MAD must be saved. The anti-authoritarian mindset it fosters is simply too important. I’d pull out every trick I’ve learned in 30 years of humor magazine publishing. DC! The fans want it! And I know how to publish it!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. THE only reason why I still buy the magazine is your work, Tom. There is A LOT of talent in the magazine but in my very personal point of view, the content was mostly lacking. I grew up with the magazine. It inspired me to be an artist and I enjoyed it for decades. Over the last 6+ years MAD Magazine to me was just not at the same level it once was.
Everyone keeps saying to buy it on the newsstand, but I’ve rarely seen it now in the magazine sections of drug stores, Walmart, etc. Used to be, but unless they’re getting snatched up when they come out, I haven’t seen them. MAD feasted on Trump for the past 2 years, but couldn’t get Trump to fight back, until he labeled Pete Buttigieg an Alfred look-a-like, and then Buttigieg didn’t know who he was. The Trump stuff was some of the best satire MAD had done in years…oh wait, it wasn’t satire, it was actually what he was doing!!
All those idiot supporters of President Scumbag trolling the MAD Mumblings Facebook page just shows they’re as sad and embarrassing as that jerkoff they support. Fools attract fools, it seems.
I’ve had a subscription (mostly) since 2001, Tom. Although I still have a subscription, I haven’t gotten an issue in the mail since 2017. I’m not sure whether it’s because the mail service where I live is lousy or that you guys have been struggling so much that it’s affecting certain people’s subscription services, but it’s been annoying. I guess I’ll have to buy the last three issues in the stores.
I haven’t bought a Mad Magazine since my brother stopped writing for them in 2006.
I’m in. I’ll buy a copy this weekend!
[…] since 2000, and is the artist behind all those amazing celebrity caricatures. On his website, he posted the following push-back on the popularly reported news that MAD was going to fold up and […]
My subscription of years ran out in feb. I went back and forth over renewing because with the death of the Mad app I now had to pay to read Mad digitally by getting a separate subscription. Well then Morrison was fired. I still bought at my local comic shop tho. I stand with the anti authoritarians. The self censorship earlier mentioned could be at play in the background. I believe that until I see the numbers for sales and a comparison to magazines of it sales cycle and topic. Oh wait there are none.
Once they started publishing with real ads, I quit buying. It took a noticeable bite out of the humor when they started worrying about advertisers. If they could go back to the old way, I’d start buying again, but I realize that probably isn’t going to happen. So, I guess I’ll just continue to read and collect the early issues. It’s sad they’re in trouble, but at this point they just aren’t up to scratch.
Having been part of the magazine when it started taking ads again (yes, AGAIN. MAD originally had ads in it) I can unequivocally say there was no change in the editorial content of the magazine with ads. The ads that appeared were ones that appeared in all DC Comics at the time. Mostly for video games, “Corn Nuts”, and similar products. Maybe there was a hard hitting MAD satire skewering Corn Nuts I didn’t know about that was axed for fear of advertiser backlash, but I’m guessing not.
I will say that having real ads in the magazine probably made the ad parodies even funnier to me. There were times when I would read an issue and come across what I momentarily thought was a real ad only to be taken aback when I realized that it was a spoof. The “Madison Avenue Smackdown” video game ad parody from the March 2005 issue (#451) is a perfect example. I didn’t even notice it until my second read.
Mad 1-23 a comic book. Changed to a mag with 24 to avoid the comics code and to go mainstream with more of an adult audience,I think. It’s time to return to a good old fashioned funny book continuing the numbering. Wouldn’t that be a twist. With all those superhero comics on the stands, what’s one more book. Keep it alive. I’ll take anything at this point. Wishful thinker.
Since it obviously doesn’t help to say, “I’ll miss MAD, but I haven’t picked up a new issue in years,” how can the opposite of that statement make its way to the powers that be? Truthfully, I started collecting MAD in 1980 with issue #216, and I haven’t missed a single issue yet. After accidentally discovering a comic book convention, I learned all about buying back issues. Today I have over 460 issues, and I will continue to go to my local comic book store and buy the newest MAD issue for as long as they are being released. Now, how do I make that sentiment to viral?
To be honest, I stopped buying it after Gaines died; it seemed to change right away. After Bill Morrison came on I tried to get subscriptions for our library system (I’m a librarian) as I thought it would be a good way to introduce people to MAD, but due to budget constraints was turned down.
Arthur Armstrong: Issue #216 was my first Mad as well. I was drawn as a youngster to “Star Blecch: The (GACCK!) Motion Picture” because I had seen the movie. I started subscribing a few years after that (using money from a paper route, I think) and have been a subscriber ever since…
Yes, Issue #216 was great as I also saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture in the theaters. It really does bring back memories, even when I pick it up nowadays to re-read the copy. However, I’ve been a MAD subscriber only twice in my life, thanks to a couple of years of Christmas gifts from my mother and one of my sisters. I’ve always preferred and enjoyed picking up my newest copy from the grocery store and, later in life, the comic book shops.
Tom,
How much of this news might be attributable to the acquisition of Time Warner (now WarnerMedia) by AT&T? Considering that conglomerate’s level of debt and its announcement of asset sales and deleveraging strategies, is this cost-cutting move potentially a symptom of such a Wall Street transaction? (If I missed you commenting on this, please forgive.)
I’d like to also say I think Mad could someday come back. Interestingly, I saw that Crazy is coming back for one issue this September, I think.
I never found ads in Mad to be a bad thing. In a sense, a good-looking ad is something cool in a comic book or a humor magazine, especially for a video game. When you look back upon an issue from years ago, the ads can be something of a time capsule that immediately brings a sense of nostalgia. I love seeing old Nintendo Entertainment System software ads in comic books, as an example. When I buy reprints of old issues of horror comics, I always am sure to check out the ads. This is a long way of saying if advertising might have helped, then the company should have used it (and not just ads from sister companies like Adult Swim, or whatever).
I’ll also add that maybe one thing that might have helped is more movie/television parodies, and doing them more than once for a particular IP. Why, for instance, was there not more than one parody of “Stranger Things,” or “Breaking Bad?” Each season of such shows could be ripe for continuity, I think is the term. Cracked used to devote issues almost solely to parodies. Magazines like Sick used to, as well. Parodies are my favorite features (although I love them all). With some digital networks showing old shows like “Welcome Back Kotter” and “The Monkees,” I look forward to the reprints, at least (assuming the magazine will do such reprints and not be afraid of younger demos not knowing them…would love that request to be passed on).
I’ll also say that maybe broadening what Mad would parody in terms of continuities might also have done something for sales. As an example, why not spoof all the “Conjuring” films? “The Purge?” “Superbad?” I was looking at an old Cracked some months ago and was surprised to see “Freddy’s Dead” in its pages…although I wasn’t surprised as well, since that magazine often did that kind of stuff.
In the end, I am no expert, and have no idea what would have helped. Disruptions happen. I love Mad, and have always appreciated you work, Tom, thanks for it. I can’t wait to see the next two issues, and I still feel Mad will be around in the years to come. My best to you…
I am actually very excited that the magazine is going to be publishing older content. I will enjoy seeing the classic Mad artists work showcased once again.
Also, I never liked the magazine once it went to full color. Keep Mad black and white and keep Tom Richmond doing new film parodies!!
Well,there’s always the Australian MAD.
I am a longtime subscriber to MAD. I collect everything from the actual magazine to the paperbacks, collected editions, and even misc non-MAD items created by some of the past artists such as Jack Davis and Mort Drucker. This is a devastating blow to not only the fans but creators like yourself that have dedicated many years into such a great comic magazine. MAD one of the reasons I became an artist and have worked in comics. It, along with it’s many, many creators were and always will be a great inspiration to me and my work.
Thanks, George!
Why don’t they just make you, Tom Richmond, the next editor? You probably know what’s best for the magazine better than anybody else. And you’d care a lot more passionately about it than some random outsider. I’d buy a subscription to that in a second. Didn’t Harvey Kurtzman draw the first MAD entirely by himself? Or most of it. Seems like if he could be editor, writer, and artist for nearly an entire issue, surely you could pull off both jobs. I mean he was literally making MAD while writing and drawing entire war comics all by himself too. I read in an interview with Gaines that Kurtzman drew slower than other artists like Jack Davis, who were able to work on several comic book lines all at the same time, and therefore Harvey was getting paid less. So he told Harvey to just kind of quickly doodle up a little comedy one so that it would take less time to draw than the super detailed realistic comics, as an excuse so he could get a raise. It was literally just a throw away side thing for some extra cash when it started. That’s why he did pretty much everything all by himself for a while until the comics code made everyone all have to jump on the comedy band wagon with him.
No one offered me the job.