After 67 years, the satirical benchmark of America MAD Magazine, is leaving newsstands, according to Fortune and confirmed by contributor David DeGrand.
After August, MAD will only be available through comic stores and mail order. Bi-monthly issues will still be produced but will only include recycled material from past issues. New content will only appear in special end-of-year issues. DC Comics confirmed MAD will be available on newsstands until August. After that, only reprints of vintage articles and comics will be featured, with different covers. Their year-end issue will still be published, along with books and special editions.
The influence of MAD is immeasurable. It artfully satirized pop culture, politics and current events. Its iconic Spy vs Spy comic by Antonio Prohias, poked fun at the Cold War conflict while its fold out back covers poked fun at the 1960’s trend of vibrant magazine fold outs, but the novelty lasted for close to 50 years. Another defining attribue of MAD was that they did not accept advertising from 1957 until 2001.
Unfortunately, with the advent of the internet, the audience for magazines has shrunk considerably. Satirical content is easily found online, rendering the demand for a hardcopy publication small (or so some think).
In a recent dig at presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, President Trump compared his appearance with that of MAD’s mascot Alfred E. Neuman. Buttigieg confessed he didn’t know what or who Trump was talking about, indicating a cultural and generational gap that may have widened too far to save MAD.
Image from New York Post
Buttigieg confessed to not being able to place the reference, to which MAD replied:
Who’s Pete Buttigieg? Must be a generational thing.
— MAD Magazine (@MADmagazine) May 11, 2019
According to Vulture, there has been no official statement from DC Comics. The majority of the staff were quietly let go within recent weeks. However, there seems to be some discrepancy regarding the production of new content. According to one unnamed freelancer, months of new content had already been produced.