Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/04/mad-magazine-mostly-shutting-d.html
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A pity, but not surprising. Their bread and butter was political satire via outlandish statements and parody every other week. Now outlandishness is just the modern daily news cycle. Their stories were dated and superceded before ever going to print.
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A shame. Ruben wasn’t the only cartoonist or comedian who got started with Mad.
For once, Alfred E. does have to worry.
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Sad news, but yeah. Not surprising. Life is nothing but satire anymore. It’s tough to turn to satire for entertainment. Hopefully The Onion can weather our current condition.
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“Hey kids, comics!”
Something you never see any more - a spinner rack at the grocery store. While there are still magazine racks, I think what is on them has become pretty blase and whittled down from when I was a kid. Mad magazine became what it was as a “fuck you” to the Comics Code Authority - and that went away years ago. So all good things must end… though it looks like they are going to put out one yearly special of new stuff, so that’s good.
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I hadn’t really read MAD in years, but resubscribed after the Ghastlygun Tinies was published.
I’m going to re-up for another year, to catch the last issues.
A few days ago, I visited this general store way up in the boonies in the Adirondack Mountains.
I remember a camping trip, forty plus years ago, when I eagerly looked forward to every visit to the store. Partially to buy Sky Bars, but mostly to visit the magazine rack and see if the latest CRACKED and MAD had shown up.
I may be conflating events, but I’m pretty sure that it was during that summer that the issue with Al Jaffe’s hilarious article on disposing of dog poop appeared. (The poop was depicted as a links of sausages.)
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I loved Mad Magazine when I was a kid. I credit it with sparking my interest in politics (or at least feeding it) at a young age. Fart jokes next to cartoons about Reagan. It really was pretty edgy. I also loved the centerfold (remember the “connect these arrows?”) and of course Spy vs Spy.
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“What??! Me worry…”
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They couldn’t try to make it two more years? Because walking away after 69 years would’ve been perfectly juvenile.
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Rats. My 12 year old son absolutely loves his Mad Magazine, and I’ve bought him several subscriptions for birthdays. When it comes in the mail he runs outside to get it, always pretty excited. I’m just not going to tell him, hopefully he won’t notice because he will be absolutely crushed…
There’s always a place for satire. I think the issue is that my generation effectively has destroyed the concept of a magazine. I’m really sorry for that … I think we all thought we could have our web pages, blogs, and still keep our newspapers and magazines. If I could choose at this point I would … I don’t want to answer that question.
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It was also holding people to their bullshit. Remember You Never Can Win With A Bigot? Now we just let bullshit like that slide. Mad Magazine’s popularity is declining in an age where journalists only ask softball questions. Not really a coincidence.
Pete Buttigieg is a little homunculus grown in a top secret lab in Indiana. He might pass for human some of the time, but sometimes his lack of humanity is rather obvious. If knowing something doesn’t serve him, he has no reason to know it. There is a whole lot he doesn’t know, like that there are a shit ton of homeless people living in Harvard Square right outside his alma mater.
Mad and Tales From The Crypt both. They were two sides of the same coin, and both William Gaines publications.
[sigh] I miss when comics were comics. Now get off my lawn.
Absolutely brilliant, that one:
Same here. He and I are about the same age, but I loved Mad when I was younger. Even the old back issues from the 60s, before I was born. I learned a lot not only about what is now history, but about how to really examine the present as well, and about how humor can get us through anything. How’s that for esoteric wisdom?
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I can’t believe that Al Jaffee, who is 98 and still working, will outlive MAD.
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Al Jaffee is a genius. He made those fold ins look easy.
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My son, too, will be bummed. So it goes. At least he had a few years with it.
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Sad.
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In the age of the internet, how many 10-year-olds read magazines? How many people of any age read magazines? My wife subscribes to Weight Watchers magazine and just got a notice that they were ceasing publication. Make magazine is no more. It’s sad when an era ends.
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I liked mad when I was a teenager but I kind of echo the sentiments of others here and that the world is such a satire now mad and even the onion don’t even seem funny anymore.
It seems like every day something happens that is so completely ridiculous that satire has no power anymore. The stupidity all rolls into one feeling.
That being said Al Jaffee’s fold ins and Spy vs Spy will live on forever. Spy vs Spy will always be something I love, thanks Mad for all the laughs
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I’m sad to see it go, but even before Trump, its humor was pretty damn dated. I read it as a kid, but it was harder to stay interested in it as an adult.
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It’s sad that it’s closing, but it’s almost inevitable.
I haven’t bought a magazine or newspaper in over a decade. It’s all on the internet now.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
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So sad to see this.
The most important legacy Mad leaves behind is that of creative freedom. Because they never once accepted an advertisement they were free to satirize any and every thing. This included products and people in the corporate, cultural, and political spheres. There was never fear of repercussion from sponsors or organized boycotts from any group. They may have been the only publication whose editorial policy was truly free of any outside influence. On the surface it may look like a bunch of goofy humor but at its heart Mad was a shining example of freedom of the press and the power of satire.
A sad symbol of the times that one of the first & last ad-free publications is gone.
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