In Memoriam: MAD Magazine

          Well, it finally happened.  I hate saying when the end of an era has come.  After all, am I even qualified to make such a determination?  Especially in this regard where I have no say in the matter at hand, no horse in this race, no Miss South Dakota in the pageant.  All I can do is assess my surroundings, take stock of what has come and what is going to come, and make a final prognosis.  So if you would all please join me in taking our hats off in respect, saying a quick if not irreverent prayer, and meeting in the fellowship hall for dry ham sandwiches and soggy potato chips, I would greatly appreciate it.  The time has finally arrived.  MAD magazine has passed away.

 

          With issue #550, MAD magazine as we all know it will cease to exist.  Yes, there will be a rebooted MAD coming in April 2018 with a new first issue, but for all intents and purposes the magazine that William M. Gaines founded is now ultimately gone.  They are moving operations from New York and most if not all of the staff are not going along for the ride to the new digs in Los Angeles.  There will be a new editor-in-chief taking over the reins from 30+ year veteran John Ficarra and according to DC co-publisher Dan DiDio, “I knew moving to the west coast wouldn’t change MAD too much.”  Huh.  (This is the same creative mind that put his okay on DC’s New 52, so DiDio certainly knows what is unintentionally hilarious.)

 

          And so it begins.  MAD on the west coast?  While I bear no ill will to the new creative staff, I must encouragingly say this: “Nah.”  By severing ties with the last vestiges of the Usual Gang of Idiots, Time Warner/DC Comics has shown that they are only concerned about the MAD name brand.  Content is secondary at best.  As DC has displayed such wisdom with how they reboot their comic universe every fifteen minutes or so, why continue to prove that you don’t know what you’re doing by doing what you’re doing to MAD?  

 

I'm guessing DC never brought their Stupid Questions to Al Jaffee.

  

          Now to be fair, MAD hasn’t been the sales giant it once was.  Back in the 1970s, I believe everyone with a vowel in their name bought an issue.  But those times are past and we’re now in whatever the hell decade we’re calling this one right now.  MAD was a monthly publication for a while, and then 8 times a year, then a monthly, then a quarterly, and then 6 times a year, and then only in months with the letter ‘R’ in their names.  Part of the reason to cut back production was definitely sales, but there always has been a core audience.  And here’s where it gets odd.

 

          MAD magazine is certainly a peculiar duck among publications.  They haven’t changed much from what Bill Gaines established.  Yes, they went to color printing.  Yes, they started having ad space for actual products that actually exist.  But overall, the format has been retained.  In a world where print is dead every other day, MAD was a constant in an ever-changing world.  Others might argue that is why a change like a reboot had to come because the magazine was a dinosaur.  But by cutting off the ties with the past, I’m sure most of the current readership no longer have that nostalgic feeling and won’t go forward with MAD: The Reboot. 

 

We miss you, Bill.
 

          You see, yes the audience is graying, but they were passing along their love of the magazine to their kids and beyond.  Millennials aren’t flocking sight unseen to the newsstand, if they can find one, to seek out a print humor magazine that started out in 1952.  The audience isn’t blindly coming from that pool, no matter how many times you stick Donald Trump on the cover as of late.  The circulation comes from the older readers handing it over to the new blood.  But when the older contributors are no longer a part of the magazine, I lose interest entirely.

 

My daughter is 7 years old and thankfully she now knows MAD.  Or at the very least she knows MAD’s Maddest Artist Don Martin via a couple of books that I gave her.  She loves them and I have a wonderful feeling when I see mommy yelling at her to read something better than that stuff.  Obviously parental solidarity prevents me from overtly showing how pleased as punch I am about her reading material choices.  (Hey, I was that same kid hearing the same stuff from my mom!)  What’s next for her?  The MAD Marginal cartoons?  The Lighter Side?  Spy vs. Spy?  The Fold-ins?  The primers, the parodies, the songs, the MAD Takes a Look at whatevers? 

 



No one but Sergio Aragonés could make that many ducks look intimidating.
 

          I’ve been a reader of MAD since 1987 and I can still remember the cover of the first issue that I got.  Beverly Hills Cop II’s Eddie Murphy was grinning about how he’s about to shoot at a target with Alfred E. Neuman behind it.  The next issue was even better with a Season’s Greetings cover that had Alfred dressed up as the Easter bunny going into a snow-covered chimney.  My nine year-old mind was hooked from that moment. 

 

If only Eddie smiled this much today...

I hunted down the magazine and sought out their paperbacks at grocery stores and flea markets.  I proudly owned the MAD board game, frustrating all that agreed to play it with me.  Every MAD Super Special was grabbed up and when there was no MAD available, I even sought out rivals like Cracked.  (This was back when Cracked was a moderately funny magazine, instead of the moderately unfunny, tar pit of lists website it is today.) 

 

For an art fair in grade school, I woodburned an image of Alfred and the MAD logo, placing third since the judges either had taste or didn’t, depending on how you want to interpret that.  From the MAD parodies, I knew the ins and outs of movies and TV shows that I had never seen. Most importantly, I discovered what the word “schmuck” meant.  (Judging by some comment about the west coast, I now believe it started out as a derivation of the word “didio”.) 

 

This makes more sense than the actual Easter Bunny.

          Thinking that I had evolved past MAD, I fell off the wagon for some time.  However, discovering myself in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with a new job and unfamiliar surroundings, I fell back on what I knew.  I started picking up MAD again and sure enough there were plenty of the old guard around, keeping watch on the content, never straying from the roots.  I proudly framed the Soul of MAD art print I received for subscribing again so every day I can see Alfred painting the blacktop in my bedroom.  Feel free to put whatever dirty double entendre you’d like on that.

 

          MAD almost felt like a family member to me: it came over to eat me out of house and home, was almost always found in the bathroom, and avoided my entreaties to help move a couch.  Unlike a family member, the art was quite good, I could skip over the dull bits, and it never complained when I would do the fold-in.  Continuing the family parallel, I found myself very saddened when MAD staffers would pass away.  Jack Davis, Don “Duck” Edwing, John Caldwell, Paul Peter Porges, Bob Clarke, Al Feldstein, Lenny Brenner, Barry Liebmann have all gone in the past several years alone.  I was genuinely taken aback when I heard of each one passing.    

 

Jack Davis had to have at least 18 fingers in order to draw all that.

          Even more remarkable were the voices that still were working on the magazine at this time.  Editor-in-Chief John Ficarra had been an Editor-in-Chief since 1984.  Art Director Sam Viviano, Senior Editors Charlie Kadau and Joe Raiola, writers Dick DeBartolo and Frank Jacobs, artists Sergio Aragonés and the venerable Al Jaffee still contributed to the magazine.  It was great to have these voices of continuity.  Because above all else, the voice of Bill Gaines continued on through these writers and artists and editors.  There was the connection, the bridge to the past, the nostalgia.  And now it is gone.

 

          Fortunately, old issues aren’t outrageously over-priced.  MAD paperback books consisting of reprints or original material are in plenty of places online or in used book stores.  MAD did some newer hardcover reprints of material as tributes to individual artists and writers such as Dave Berg, Don Martin, Frank Jacobs, Mort Drucker, and Sergio Aragonés.  These are easy enough to find or if you want to come over to my house, call ahead and you can read some of the copies I have for a nominal fee.

 

          Going forward, the magazine for all intents and purposes is gone.  MAD, you will be missed indeed.  Thank you for the entertainment and some of the best art and writing from the greatest group of schmucks and schmendricks ever assembled on the MAD zeppelin.  The legacy of the original MAD is still alive.  At least in my household as I raise my own Usual Gang of Idiots.  As always, “What, Me Worry?” Potrzebie!