Sentimental Snichael…OR: “The End of a Byline Era”
Sure, I’m an old crank and a cynic…but I’m not completely immune to sentimentality. I just got my hands on MAD Classics #25, containing 3 pieces I wrote for MAD years ago, and I suddenly realized: this is almost certainly the FINAL appearance of my byline in anything-”MAD” on the newsstands after 30 years (since both MAD Classics and MAD Kids are now ceasing publication, and the last new writing I did for MAD or MAD Kids was the end of 2006). So, hoist up whatever beverage you have handy right now, and join me in a toast to the Official Death of the “Writer: Mike Snider” MAD-Byline! Ziggy-ziggy, ziggy-ziggy, oy, oy, oy! (Urp!)
Now, as far as the active part of my MAD-writing career (as opposed to the “Reprint part”), it had no such neat & tidy “end-point.” It was just an uneventful, slow-motion petering-out. No, I take that back: there was ONE “event” – the most bizarre phone call I’ve ever been subjected to in my life! – that, while it didn’t directly lead to the end of my writing for MAD, did sort of “upset the apple cart” of an otherwise smooth 2-decade-long working relationship I had with the Editor who placed the “offending” phone call (about which: the less said, the better!). So, for anyone curious about why I stopped writing for MAD:
See, early in this decade, my ‘acceptance percentage’ [the % of submitted-premises that are ultimately bought & published] dropped from the 20-30% range to around 10%. For whatever reason, my writing wasn’t “connecting” with the MAD Editors as frequently as before. (Which I don’t “blame” anyone for; MAD has no obligation to any of its freelance contributors, we all know that. And, “what’s funny” is one of the most subjective things in life — its all personal opinion.)
But, anyway, the drop to around 10% wasn’t, by itself, too alarming – you could live with it, just means cranking out more premises. Except for two things that were happening around this time, one affecting every MAD Writer, and the other, probably (I hope!) just me: First, the Editorial response times to writers in general were getting longer and longer (which I attribute to all the extra workload DC Comics started piling on to them: going from 8 to 12 issues a year; adding more Specials & books; starting MAD Kids; color; advertising; etc.). But the second thing — the bizarre 2002 phone call about which the less I say, the better — was apparently so difficult for the “offending” Editor to reconcile having made to me, that he just DIDN’T. His “solution” to his self-created professional speed-bump was…to totally move me over to being handled by a different Editor, and to avoid talking to me altogether (except briefly in passing at a MAD Xmas party).
This second Editor I was passed along to – he’s a good guy, but he had “his own” stable of freelancers he was already too busy with and, well…I guess I just fell between the cracks. What had become simply “bad” response times for everyone else (I’m assuming), became “glacial” in my case. It was typical, from, say, 2002 onward for me to have to wait 6 months, a year, even 14 months to hear back from Editors on a single draft (I’ve got my meticulously kept Logbook to prove it). The previous norm had been 1 or 2 months, 3 at the absolute most! (And, as I keep pointing out to no avail, there are two pieces from over 5 years ago that I STILL haven’t heard back about!)
Along about 2003/2004, it became apparent to me that, even if I were able to get my ‘acceptance percentage’ back up to where it was (OR crank out a lot more premises)…I would probably never return to the MAD-income I’d enjoyed in the 80s & 90s because of the RIDICULOUS length of time it was now taking to get ANYTHING of mine through the editorial process (much less to the check-writing phase)!
Therefore, I proceeded to do what 99.9% of freelance writers have to do (which I had been spared during the umpteen years I wrote for MAD and MAD alone): I found other work. In 2004, MAD accounted for just half of my total income; for the next couple years, it was 10% or less; by the end of 2006, my attitude (and theirs?) was “eh, why bother?”
So, there’s the story.“Sour grapes?” Decide for yourself. (I’d say more like “Petrified raisins,” the length of time they left me to stew on the back burner.)
Since nobody asked me…here’s what I can tell you about our homestate governor, Janet Napolitano, who was just nominated by Barack Obama to be our nation’s next Homeland Security Director:
my Uncle Norm who, besides being my favorite (and only) uncle, was more responsible than anyone for my becoming a MAD writer. When I was 7 or 8, on our family’s first visit to Norm’s apartment, I was let loose in a closet containing his collection of MADs — most of the entire run of the magazine up to that point (early 1960s). I lost track of the time I spent poring over them that day, but I knew one thing: I was definitely hooked.