I grew up with the “classic” Mad Magazine from the mid '60s to roughly the mid '80s. Then, first Don Martin aka “Mad’s Maddest Artist” left, and then Bill Gaines died. I’ve never bothered to buy the current version with glossy, color pages (and advertising!) or watch Mad TV. But maybe I’m just an old fogey? How does the younger generation regard the current version of Mad?
Mad is still being published?
It jumped the shark when Gaines died, IMO.
I haven’t seen one in 20 years.
I bought one when I was waiting for a presciption to be filled. Wow, how the mighty have fallen. I’ll reread the Mad magagazines from my youth happily.
Now, it is useless.
Things really went downhill when they started having to advertise. Now the magazine seems as much advertisement as it is material.
Gaines is dead, Martin went “ka-floo-ie,” and Antonio Prohias (creator of “Spy vs. Spy”) has shuffled off as well. Last time I checked, the only really funny guy they had left was Sergio Aragones, and as much as I love his work, it’s not enough for me to pay cover price.
$3.75? Cheap? What, me buy?
Wasn’t MAD 99 cents for awhile?
Is it what it was in the 1960s and 1970s? No. But before I call it better or worse, I’ll just say it’s different.
Yes, Gaines is gone. So is Martin, Berg, and Clarke. But Drucker still does some work, and so does Coker, and so does Jaffee. Aragones, naturally, is still there with features as well as the margin cartoons. Some of the newer artists are just as funny as the old ones: I’m thinking John Caldwell here, for example. And Richmond can do the movie/TV satires as well as anybody.
Some things fall flat. The Fundalini stuff is okay for the most part, but very little is fall-off-your-chair funny. Colour pages haven’t made much of a difference, IMHO; and I could do without the paid advertising. That reminds me: I’m not entirely keen on having a “new products review” that is basically thinly disguised advertising.
But other items hit where they should. Reality TV has opened up a whole new kind of TV parody, and Mad has taken some good shots at things like American Idol and Trading Spaces and Sex and the City. Jaffee’s fold-ins continue to be timely, and the Letters page still has the editor’s comebacks. Aragones now has a regular “Mad Look At” feature, also. Nice to see his stuff in a regular size.
We’re a long way from the 1970s days of one movie parody, one TV parody, a Spy vs. Spy, a “Lighter Side Of”, and two or three Don Martins, plus whatever other things came to the editors’ minds. It’s different than it was; no doubt. But overall, I’d have to say that it’s not bad.
I’ll second that. Mad Magazine is where I learned to distrust “Madison Avenue.” Ads in Mad Magazine is like Scientologists buying out the Cult Awareness Network. The people who used to be the enemy are now in charge.
I hadn’t heard about Prohias. What a pity.
I love Mad for teaching a young child the concept of an “ulterior motive.”
I always admired *MAD *for their refusal to run ads. They and Consumer Reports were the two major national magazines that ran ad-free; MAD stated that ads would “compromise their satire.”
Still, while I hate that they’ve had to start running ads, I can certainly understand it. I’m sure it’s tough to get kids to pony up for a printed magazine of satire, when they’ve got the Internet at their disposal.
(By the way: MAD’s official site)
Gone to blazes.
Mad, in it’s glory days, could make me roar with laughter.
Now? It’s got a page dedicated to pimping upcoming CDs, DVDs, & computer games. An ad, disguised as an article. :mad:
I bought a copy a few years ago and was seriously disappointed. It reminded me of classic Mad’s much inferior competitors, Cracked and Sick. It was juvenile in a way that the old Mad wasn’t. Granted, this view is based on a single magazine I bought about 10 years or so ago.