https://comicbook.com/dc/2019/07/04/...e-publication/
The end of an era.
https://comicbook.com/dc/2019/07/04/...e-publication/
The end of an era.
This is madness. MADNESS!
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Buried Alien - THE FASTEST POST ALIVE!
First CBR Appearance (Historical): November, 1996
First CBR Appearance (Modern): April, 2014
I haven't bought an issue in a really long time but still
"They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you. My only son." - Jor-El
This isn't surprising. I've never known or even heard of anyone actually buying this magazine.
I bought it when I was a kid, but it's been decades. Sad to see it go, but they did try to keep it going for the last several years. First, with the change to bimonthly, and then with the relaunch.
The article says that, after its new material inventory is exhausted, Mad will continue to publish a few issues of reprints in order to fulfill subscription obligations then shut down completely.
Maybe DC will find a way to keep Mad going as an occasional reprint magazine in the higher priced bookazine format that they've already done some specials with. Just to keep the trademark on the magazine name if nothing else.
Alternatively, they should just rethink the whole concept and make it a comic-sized publication, integrate it into DC-proper, and use it to publish superhero parodies and other comedic features like the old PLOP and Crazy/Not Brand Ecch comics that DC and Marvel used to do. Have it hosted by Ambush Bug and the Inferior Five or something.
Some classic Mad features can be retained to honor its history, but make otherwise make it something that will appeal to comic shop customers.
If you can get 10-15,000 comics fans to buy it each issue, Mad could stay alive.
That sucks. A comedy institution has ended.
I don't know, if you lose Alfred E Newman for Ambush Bug and/or go to mostly superhero parody then other than maintaining the trademark why even call it MAD? You'd be better served to relaunch PLOP.
The reprint stuff might be a good idea in the short run, but how much of that retains relevance as time passes. How much of the prior content is tied to TV/movie references that were familiar at least to an audience in 1950-1970, for example, but would go over the heads of someone born in 1990. How much of it is based on stuff we no longer find "funny" like racial or sexual stereotypes? Or a gag page about the internet from 2000, cell phones from 2010, fax machines, etc...
Actually, it's just going into reprints.
https://comicbook.com/2019/07/04/mad...ails-revealed/
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The Mad trademark is worth more than the PLOP trademark, so they should find a way to keep it in use, and either using it for periodic reprint material or relaunching it as a comic book parody comic seems like the way to do it. It doesn't have to be all superheroes, but enough so that comics fans will want to pick it up. Alfred E. Neuman can still be the cover guy to keep his image trademarked as well.
Sad to see it go. Their copyright victory over Irving Berlin on the copyright of parodies was a landmark decision in American pop culture.
«Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvellous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out» (Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History [4.56.1])
Rip mad. Used to love spy vs spy. Even played the nes game!
This is sad, but hopefully they find someone to remember what made MAD so fun and bring it back.
Yeesh, another major DC(-bought) brand coming to an end. I mean, I get it. It hasn't been much of a seller for years, I believe. It does still feed into how iffy the business side of DC is right now, though.
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