Mad Magazine is Dead. Long Live Mad Magazine.

Above: one of my cartoons in Mad Magazine.



Mad Magazine is dead. Long live Mad Magazine.

Mad will cease publishing new content this summer. From there on out, a new Mad magazine, publishing reruns, will be available in limited outlets.

Sad news!

Like so many people out there, there's the history of Mad and then there's your own personal history of Mad. To think that I would meet and even know some of these legendary Mad cartoonists ("the usual gang of idiots") never occurred to me when I was kid. Ditto actually becoming one of "the gang" when Mad bought some of my cartoons.

It was considered, after Playboy and TV Guide, one of the major magazine publishing successes to come out of the 1950s. It hit a height of 2.4 million copies sold in 1973. So many of the cartoonists that made Mad Mad were legendary: Drucker, Martin, Aragones, Coker, Jaffee, Berg, Edwing, Woodbridge, Elder, Wood and others.

Recently, the magazine moved from its historic headquarters in NYC to Los Angeles, with a new editor.

Now the magazine will be available in comic book shops and with a subscription. There will regular issues, with new covers and old Mad articles inside. There has been an annual announced, that will have new material.

For me, Mad Magazine was an obsession. It was the height of Mad, the 1970s. Growing up in Lawrence, KS, I became disciplined and saved my money -- enough to present to my Dad and ask him to write a check so I could subscribe to Mad. It was great to get it in the mail! Wow!

Years later, at the 2013 National Cartoonist Society Reubens, I was fortunate enough to tell Mad editor Nick Meglin this. My Dad was there as well, and Nick mock-apologized to him for warping his son. Ha ha ha.

Related:

Michael Cavna, Washington Post: Mad magazine, a pioneer of modern satire, will soon cease publishing new content


Comicbook.com: Details Surface About Plans for MAD Magazine's Future