MAD magazine to stop producing new content after 67 years
One of my favourite comics/magazines will stop producing new content after 67 years of publication.
Hardly a month went by when I didn't pick up a copy of MAD magazine. Packed with funny stuff that, I learnt later in life, was also incredibly topical and poignant, MAD Magazine was a staple of my early teens and I still pick up and flick through a copy any time I go into a newsagents (which, admittedly, isn't very often any more).
As Monty Python's Terry Gilliam once said: ""Mad became the Bible for me and my whole generation."
The publishers of MAD have called it quits on new content and any new editions will only be sold in comic book stores and by subscription from August onwards.
So, no more new Spy V Spy. No more fresh funnies, but plenty of old favourites will feature in future editions. Luckily the publishers have over 550 issues from which to draw the creme de la creme of comic genius-ness.
Were you a MAD fan? What was your favourite feature?
Yes I was a fan.
The cover of the first Mad magazine, which appeared in 1952 as an experimental comic book.CreditJerry Mosey/Associated Press
Over 40 years ago, my then under 5 daughter found my collection of Mad magazines and would secrete herself away and pore over them. She couldn't read, but was creating her own stories from the well drawn comic strips. Maybe this inspired her life long passion for the visual arts. Maybe I now know who to bequeth that collection to.
Maybe a lengthy diet of Mad humour has instilled a certain level of cynicsm in me today towards so much that society and the media push forward as valuable to our community. All done without profanity or even lewd content.