GET WOKE, GO BROKE? Mad Magazine to Effectively Shutter After 67 Years:
The beloved satire publication will no longer be sold on newsstands after the August issue, and future editions will no longer feature new content and instead shift to previously published material — with new covers.
MAD Magazine, the irreverent and highly influential satirical magazine that gave the world Alfred E. Neuman, will effectively cease publication some time later this year after 67 years, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Sources tell THR that after issue 9, MAD will no longer be sold on newsstands and will only be available through comic book shops as well as mailed to subscribers. After issue 10, there will no longer be new content in subsequent issues save for the end-of-year specials (those will be all-new). Beginning with issue 11, the magazine will only feature previously published content — classic and best-of nostalgic fare — from its massive fault of the past 67 years. DC, however, will also continue to publish MAD books and special collections.
On Wednesday night, MAD cartoonists David DeGrand and Evan Dorkin took to social media to confirm and lament the closure of the magazine. The news follows writer Dan Telfer’s tweet earlier this week about being laid off as a senior editor at the magazine.
As Comic Book.com notes, it’s tough to be a humor publication in a bifurcated America:
The 2017 reorganization and subsequent 2018 reboot both struggled with finding an identity for MAD in an increasingly satire-saturated world. Between websites that can deliver topical comedy in real time and a fiercely divided American populace who cannot agree on what comedy is because their preferences break down along party lines, MAD struggled to find an elusive niche. When political humor seemed to work, MAD doubled down on lampooning the Trump administration, which earned some critical praise but likely alienated conservative readers as well as putting the magazine in direct competitions with late night shows that were delivering content nightly rather than once every two months.
Although doubling-down on leftwing humor has kept that industry going as their audience increasingly contracts.
(Via Small Dead Animals.)