Sunday Mailbag: MAD Frequency?

Q: For most of its history MAD had a circulation of 8 issues a year. Then, when DC Comics took over, the number of issues went from 8 issues to a monthly magazine until issue #499. From #500 it was 4 issues for awhile and ultimately went up to 6 issues a year. Do you think the quality of MAD Magazine went down when it was a monthly issue? Do you think it should have remained at 8 issues a year. How was the general response to MAD being issued out 4 times a year.. and ultimately coming out 6 times a year? How many issues a year would have been  the ideal number for a good, quality MAD magazine, based on the above experience? Or, did that actually matter?

A: MAD was a monthly when I started working for them in 2000, and published twelve issues a year until 2009, when it went to a quarterly and then to a bimonthly. It was only monthly for about 9 of the 20 years I worked for them. Seemed like a lot longer than that, but I guess that’s accurate. They switched to monthly in 1994, after a gradual increasing of the number of issues each year starting in 1992.

I never felt there was slide in the “quality” of the magazine from when it was eight issues a year to the bump up to twelve. The art and writing in MAD never seemed rushed or sloppy to me, no matter what the frequency of publication was. I didn’t notice an INCREASE in quality when we went to quarterly and then to bimonthly, either. Artists and writers do what they do, and unless they are seriously crunched for time the work they produce is largely consistent because they don’t like to turn in something they aren’t happy with. Sometimes having a tough deadline only makes the work better. Nothing squeezes out the creative juices like pressure.

Of course, one’s concept of “quality” is subjective. I’m just saying I never saw an artist or writer’s work in MAD seem less than their usual stuff when MAD switched to a monthly.

I think MAD did fine as a monthly for the 15 years it published at that rate. Sure there were times I wish I’d had another week to work on something, but I can only recall one job where I really felt I had to cut too many corners to meet a really impossible deadline, and peers of mine think I’m the only one that notices anything with the work. They’re probably right.

I thought 6 issues a year was okay, but I would have preferred at least 8, and frankly monthly was great.

Thanks to Andreas Ulanowsky for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about  cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!