Sunday Mailbag: The New MAD?

Q: You’ve done three issues with the new MAD staff now, is it a lot different than working with the old staff? If so, how?

A: It would be impossible for it not to be different. I spent 17 plus years working with the same art directors and editors, and now I am working with an entirely new group of people. I went from knowing exactly what the staff wanted to see and what I could “get away with” to having to learn that all over again. The NYC staff had a way of doing things that was honed by 65 years of continuous publishing, with new staffers working alongside veterans learning the ropes and carrying on the same kind of approach and process. The new staff not only started cold, with only a week or so of meeting with the NYC staff and seeing how the magazine is put together, but they also have different ideas and tastes on what they think works and what does not.

That said, they have been very easy to work with. I’m doing one of the “tentpole” features (the movie/TV parodies) in the magazine that has not changed much so other than each of us learning how the other works and gets things done, it’s been an easy transition.

Thanks to R. Griffin 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!