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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 14, 2017 17:37:01 GMT -5
I do think that influence has probably fallen off since the late 70s-early 80s...but I also could be wrong about that. I don't think you are though. Circulation of Mad appears to have peaked in 1974 at 2.1 million copies and issue. I then fell off with 1982 being the last year they had circulation of over 1 million an issue. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2017 17:40:30 GMT -5
Mad Magazine only appeal to me between the age of 11 to 17; after 17 ... I stopped altogether and never, ever looked back. My favorite characters in Mad Magazines was Spy versus Spy. My cousins supplied me all the Mad Humor during that period of my life. |
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Post by tarkintino on Jun 14, 2017 17:48:34 GMT -5
I've spoken a number of times in this forum about how much I loved reading MAD Magazine back in the 80s, between the ages of 12 and 18, and how, the older I get, the more I realise just how much influence it has had on my worldview as an adult. In addition to the magazine, I also loved collecting the paperback books which gathered a lot of material from the 50s and 60s; I used to pick those up from used book shops or market stalls fairly often as a teen. As far as I'm concerned, the magazine's heyday was a roughly 20 year period from the mid-60s through to the mid-80s. Myself, I was still reading in it well into the early 90s, but it's hard not to feel that it was something of a spent force by then. In a lot of ways, The Simpsons took over the job of subverting America and the West's impressionable youth with hilarious wit, needle sharp satire and well-founded cynicism. For me, MAD was a successful force of its own from its start to the early 1980s. By the 90s, there seemed to be a conscious decision to water down the content, making it "kid friendly" instead of allowing that group of kids who naturally grow into satire at an early age, then discovering magazines of this type on their own. MAD of the 90s-forward tried to be cutesy, and all things to all people (a business philosophy that never works), to the point even their movie & TV satires did not make clever, biting comments on the films, but tried to laugh with the TV & films in a kid-gloves manner. Toothless. I also collected the Signet novels, loving the reprints of great issues, along with new content, and it was so rich with a kind of humor that was jaw-dropping and smart--the opposite of magazines like Cracked (trying to be funny, but failing), or often stale, ideologically one-sided/unfunny TV series ( Saturday Night Live). MAD created their own voice and universe, and it worked for some time, but that that has not been the case in nearly 30 years. The magazine was more interested in producing dumbed-down, "crowd pleasing" material, while their corporate owners pushed MAD / Alfred E. Neuman toys. Again, toothless. I doubt modern MAD will be missed. For others, at least they have back issues, and collections to relive the great times. |
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Post by Batflunkie on Jun 14, 2017 18:18:28 GMT -5
Even before the magazine, I'd argue that MAD was the single most important American comic ever. It might have been, but see the problem is that people in America has grossly forgotten what "satire" is as a concept and seemingly get offended by just about anything and everything. Like they can't separate between "bigotry" and "a gentle ribbing", maybe we've just gotten so used to irreverent potty mouths like Sam Kinison & Andrew Dice Clay that we don't understand subtlety when they see it |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 14, 2017 18:36:50 GMT -5
Huh. Weird. Even before the magazine, I'd argue that MAD was the single most important American comic ever. Edit: And last I checked Mad was, at least, outselling every DC and Marvel comic. You can definitely make that argument. It was hugely influential. I do think that influence has probably fallen off since the late 70s-early 80s...but I also could be wrong about that. Yeah, that's true - I was trying to differentiate between the comic and the magazine. By the '70s Mad style humor was diffused and spread out through the culture - National Lampoon is a good one (is THAT still going?), Saturday Night Live, Robert Crumb, Terry Gilliam... while Mad just kind of kept doing the same thing others took the basic Kurtzman template and pushed it forward. I did buy Mad for a little while as a (young!) adult - circa... eh... 1997 or 8 or so they did a more "adult" rebranding and had Peter Kuper involved. Don't remember too much about it. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jun 14, 2017 20:40:17 GMT -5
Insert Mad Fold-In joke here. Honestly, I've never even associated Mad with comics beyond knowing Sergio Aragones made his fame there. I'm not trying to insult the publication, mind you. It just fell off my radar once I hit pubescence. I look back on most comics with nostalgia, but what really attracts me to them as an adult is the ability to find complexity and artistry in them that I couldn't see as a child. If Mad also holds that kind of appeal (and I'm not necessarily saying it doesn't), I've yet to be made aware of it. I LOVED Mad as a kid, but I've never looked back. I guess I'm part of the problem. Huh. Weird. Even before the magazine, I'd argue that MAD was the single most important American comic ever. Edit: And last I checked Mad was, at least, outselling every DC and Marvel comic. Successful, sure. It stuck with newsstand distribution when everyone else shifted to the direct market. Kept a broader readership, I'm sure. Important? I wouldn't know. I felt like I outgrew Mad a lot earlier than I outgrew other comics. Seemed immature to me, even at the age of twelve. But maybe that was just a reflection of my own immaturity. I guess I'd have to go back and read it again to know. |
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Post by berkley on Jun 14, 2017 23:04:54 GMT -5
I was really into MAD for about 2 or 3 years in the early to mid 70s and then got a bit tired of it, or at least didn't feel any urge to read the new issues - I still bought the paperback collections of the reprints of the older stuff, which seemed of higher quality, even though the reduced page size made them hard to read.
I totally agree about the influence. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that a large part of Stan Lee's revitalisation of superhero comics was due to his introduction of the ironic, self-aware irreverence and pop-culture connectedness of MAD to that genre.
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Post by rom on Jun 14, 2017 23:56:04 GMT -5
I was born in the early '70's, so didn't start reading MAD magazine until probably the early '80's. I did feel that '80's MAD was very funny, including Al Jaffee's "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions", the clever "Fold-up" artwork in the back of the mag., Don Martin's ridiculous looking characters, "The Lighter Side Of...", etc. Even as a kid, I remember literally laughing out loud at some of the articles/artwork.
In reading those small MAD TPB collections of 1950's - 1970's issues/articles that came out as reprints at the time, it was obvious that the heyday of the magazine was definitely the 1950's - 1970's. While '70's & '80's MAD was great & still the best satire/humor magazine from that time period, the early years of the magazine were hilarious - especially the humor poking fun at the conservative '50's/early 1960's mores.
I lost touch with MAD in the '90's, though in the past 20+ years I paged through the magazine a few times when I saw it on the stands. It is definitely NOT funny anymore, and hasn't been for a while. Now, it's actually stupid, and a shade of it's former self. Not surprised that the magazine may get cancelled soon - it's heyday was years ago, and these days the mag. is way past it's prime....
Side-note: I never much liked Cracked magazine in the 1980's; I thought it was way too "vanilla" and unfunny.
I did like Marvel's Crazy magazine to some extent; Obnoxio the Clown (the mascot) was fairly sickening (in a funny way), and I felt that the humor was a lot edgier than what we saw in Cracked....
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Post by chadwilliam on Jun 15, 2017 0:52:05 GMT -5
The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that a large part of Stan Lee's revitalisation of superhero comics was due to his introduction of the ironic, self-aware irreverence and pop-culture connectedness of MAD to that genre.
Wow - I had never thought about this before but this is a great observation! The premise of stuff like SuperDuperMan sounds like a Marvel Comic - idol of millions in his superhero identity but can't catch a break in his everyday life where he's regarded as a bottom feeding "creep" - while the premise of stuff like The Fantastic Four sounds like it could have come from MAD with The Thing clumsily knocking down walls while trying to get through doorways when not bickering with The Torch and chasing after The Yancy Street Gang. A recurring theme with MAD's take on superheroes seemed to be that these guys were pretty out of control people who the average person in the street wanted to keep at arm's length before they wrecked the town. A lot of Lee's work seemed to be pointing out how superheroes can't really exist side-by-side with the person on the street - ie. Spider-Man tries to sell his web formula while normal scientist points out how silly it would be to buy an adhesive that melts after an hour; Spider-Man wants to get paid for his work but can't figure out how to cash a cheque made out to "Spider-Man".
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Post by urrutiap on Jun 15, 2017 2:38:42 GMT -5
In the early 1980s up to the early 1990s Cracked was my personal choice to buy and read. The jokes were funnier and their special jokes were better than Mad. I still have Cracked issues from the 1990s such as the Lion King on the front cover and they're still in great shape
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Post by MDG on Jun 15, 2017 7:31:13 GMT -5
The truth, probably, is less about the current MAD than the fact that all mass-market print magazines have been having a hard time for decades. While there were a lot of loyal MAD readers, there were probably always just as many casual readers who'd pick it up as "something to read," and I don't think there are as many of those in MAD's target demo. I don't even know where they'd see it now--I'll have to check the magazine racks in Wegmans and Target next time I'm there. And $6 may seem less a "casual" purchase to an 11-year-old.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 15, 2017 8:57:28 GMT -5
I'd hate to see MAD fold under completely. Insert Mad Fold-In joke here. Honestly, I've never even associated Mad with comics beyond knowing Sergio Aragones made his fame there. I'm not trying to insult the publication, mind you. It just fell off my radar once I hit pubescence. I look back on most comics with nostalgia, but what really attracts me to them as an adult is the ability to find complexity and artistry in them that I couldn't see as a child. If Mad also holds that kind of appeal (and I'm not necessarily saying it doesn't), I've yet to be made aware of it. I LOVED Mad as a kid, but I've never looked back. I guess I'm part of the problem. Same here.. I did enjoy browsing through Mad as a kid when I saw it on the rack, but I rarely purchased it, and never associated it with comic books at all...no more than I'd associate Manga with Marvel and DC. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 15, 2017 9:19:09 GMT -5
This is one of those things I know I'm supposed to feel all sad about, but I don't. Much as I loved MAD as a kid (and still love the contributions of Sergio Aragones, Al Jaffee, and Mort Drucker), I haven't felt a connection to it since around 9th grade (which was 45 years ago). For me, its impending demise is on a par with Western Union no longer sending telegrams: a sign of the times. (Also, unlike virtually every other fan in the world, I have never been impressed by the Kurtzman-era comic book version, and find its characterization above as "the single most important American comic book" ridiculously hyperbolic, sorry.)
Cei-U!
I summon the shrug!
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Post by MDG on Jun 15, 2017 10:01:00 GMT -5
Cei-U! , I can't understand your lukewarmness toward Kurtzman's comic, but I have a lot of respect for what Feldstein made of the book--a universally-recognized brand, international editions, a consistent stable of quality artists and writers, 15 or so years of growing circulation, a very profitable magazine that didn't take advertising.... And in part, he was almost hampered by Gaines who didn't want to change from the "cheap" format or take ads (Feldstein envisioned an in-house ad agency that would create suitable ads). I really think the heyday may have been the early-mid 60s just before I started reading it. The era of this: 
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2017 15:50:16 GMT -5
I read Mad Magazine as a child in the late 70s and early 80s. I even had the Mad Magazine board game! I probably stopped reading around 1984 or so. I did like Cracked--especially the specials with stills from movies and they would insert funny captions. I still have one of those specials.
To be honest, I didn't know Mad Magazine was still being published!
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