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With the 17-zillionth flareup in the Eternal & Unsolvable Israeli/Palestinian Conflict, I’m reminded of perhaps the most surreal moments I ever witnessed on any of my 4 MAD trips. Let me paint the picture for you:

The Year: 1989. A resort hotel lobby in peaceful, neutrality-loving Switzerland, listening to Dave Berg and Sergio Aragones carry on a “spirited” discussion of the tit-for-tat history of the Middle East, whilst the latter works on pages of his (and Mark Evanier’s) comic book “Groo the Wanderer” spread over a large table. (BTW: Yes, it’s true: Sergio IS the Fastest Artist in the World!) Every so often, as the rising outrage- and volume-level of the arguments threatens to boil over, Dave turns to me, the new kid, to explain that “Sergio is one of my best friends!” To which Sergio reciprocates, “Absolutely! And Dave Berg is one of MY best friends!” “That’s right,” Dave says, “even though he actually believes that the Palestinians…” And then it’s back to the argument - to be interrupted again by Dave (the author of a 1960s book entitled, “My Friend, God”) telling me that “he’s not that religious”; that his views on Israel are strictly secular. And back to the argument…on and on, ad infinitum (pretty much like the conflict itself!)

Dave and Sergio were the only two MAD guys I ever heard get serious about Israel/Palestine. I guess everyone else knows in their bones what a “comedy killer” it is and, therefore, utterly pointless for a comedy writer to spend time thinking about (unless you happen to be a comedy writer living in Beersheba or Gaza City). One of my few forays into this topic was within a MAD piece I wrote called “CNN Sitcoms Based on News Stories They’ve Covered” - it was a faux sitcom called, “Shlomo Loves Fatima,” about an Israeli soldier during the intifada and the female Palestinian agitator “whose rock hits him like Cupid’s Arrow.” Apparently, I heard, even that was too much for some angry letter-writers. 

Other “Comedy Killer” subjects: let’s see, Cancer…Child Abuse…oh, the new kid on the block, 9/11, and of course, the JFK and Lincoln Assassinations (the other 2 presidential hit-jobs are theoretically okay…but it’s been ages since I’ve heard a good McKinley Assassination joke!)

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The chart below shows MAD’s paid circulation over the past 5 decades (as reported by the magazine itself, and collected by MAD’s unofficial, but trusted, Keeper-of-the-Stats, Mike Slaubaugh). There are several interesting things on this chart, which I’ve labelled A through D, in red:

Letter A. There’s a theory in the MAD Community that the magazine was mainly a phenomenon of the Baby Boom Generation (those born between 1946 and 1964). Thus, the reasoning goes, the main “cause” of the declining readership of MAD was NOT (as I’ve argued) its failure to “change with the times” but merely the aging of the Boomers into adulthood, and right out of the core MAD-reading demographic. I don’t like this theory; it seems defeatist to me (and like an excuse for not having changed) — but, looking at this chart, it’s hard to dispute it. See, the year 1974 (”A”), when MAD reached its peak circulation of 2.1 million, also happens to be the 20th anniversary of the Median & Most-Populous Year of Baby Boomers, 1954 (which I happen to know because it includes ME, and I did indeed turn 20 years old, so the math works out fine!). The upshot of this “Median year”-business is, before 1974, the number of Baby Boomers Under Age 20 (available as MAD readers) INCREASED every year; after 1974, that number only DECREASED. The dramatic up-&-down plot of the MAD-circulation graph mirrors the entire Boomer Generation’s own movement through the pre-teen and teenage years. (And, don’t forget: despite the perennial hype about the size of the Baby Boom generation, it has long since been numerically eclipsed by both Gen-X and Gen-Y. Where are all of THEM on this graph?)

Letter B. Just look at that trend-line from, say 1979 to 1984! Wow! The then-editors must’ve been shitting their pants on a regular basis — losing fully HALF of their readers in 5 years! The most obvious cause, in addition to very last of the Boomers leaving their Teen years, is VIDEO GAMES. Specifically, Arcade Video Games - which ate up many a quarter otherwise destined to buy a copy of MAD. (But I would add another possible cause: the shifting of American Humor during this time toward the more raunchy, more ironic & conceptual, and more “biting” and rough — leaving relatively-mild & straightforward “MAD-style” Humor in the dust.)

Letter C. What’s this? A little uptick in circulation, maybe signaling a reversal of the general downward trend? Oop — false alarm. Resume the shitting of pants!

(Notice also, to the right of “C”: the years 1993/1994 - the birth of the Internet-as-we-know-it (not its “Arpa-Net“-ish precursors). What was MAD’s circulation then? Under 500,000, down from its 2.1 million peak. Hmm. So much for the argument that it’s the Internet that killed MAD. It had already lost 75% of its readers before the Net was even a twinkle in the eye of its father, Al Gore!)

Letter D. Now here’s the real mystery: the circulation plateau of about 200,000 from 2000 to 2007. Who are these people? (Whoever they are, 30,000 of ‘em just disappeared in the last year!) I’m sure that some of the 200,000 were “never-left” adult MAD readers (whom I personally know to exist: one was my family doctor in Nevada; another is a helicopter reporter for a major-market NBC-affiliate; yet another is a big political consultant in his 50s). And then there are the children (or grandchildren? Gulp!) of former MAD readers, enticed (badgered?) by their elders into reading it. But surely there MUST be at least some Gen-Y or “Millenial”-readers with no existing “family connection” to MAD who were somehow LURED IN by the magazine itself. Ah, THESE are the readers that must be captured, and studied, and replicated in a laboratory — quickly! — for MAD to have any chance of surviving past next year.

Tags: MAD topics // 11 Comments »

It’s no secret that MAD Magazine has been in trouble for awhile. Of course, magazines in general have been hemorrhaging readers big-time over the past few decades, but MAD is near the head (”foot?”) of that pack, losing over 90% of its paid circulation since the high of 2.1 million for the year 1974. During the past decade, they seemed to have settled into a stable (if dismal) range of 200,000 plus-or-minus 10,000…that is, until this past year. They’ve just published their latest annual Statement of Circulation (MAD#497, p. 6): the average per-issue Total Paid Circulation is way down to 170,000…with the “issue closest to filing date” coming in even worse at 167,000!

Yikes: that’s a 15% drop in just one year…with an additional 2% drop for the final month, just as a little extra “kick in the balls!”

(I knew this past year would probably be awful for MAD when, around last Christmas-time, they were calling up freelancers all over the country - including me, before I became The Felonious MAD-Blogger to them — and asking us to “check” to see if the magazine was getting onto our local newsstands. Not a good sign.)

Now for the rumor I’ve heard from half a dozen separate sources this year: MAD #500 will be the last one ever; 3 more issues and they’re calling it quits, at a nice, round number. I point out again that this is only RUMOR, nothing definitive, nothing from anyone actually in the position to “pull the plug.” But, still… (And all of the times I heard this rumor were before these latest worsening circulation numbers came out…and also before the financial-sector crisis that lead to the current general economic meltdown.)

Up Next: Some interesting things this graph says about “What the hell happened to MAD?”

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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:

First, let me warn you about something — because if I don’t, you’ll probably do an involuntary “spit-take” when you first encounter this: Napolitano has a horse-laugh you usually don’t hear coming out of a woman as petite as she is, or for that matter, anyone of either gender outside of a Blue Collar Comedy audience. Not that there’s anything “wrong” with that, I’m just saying — next couple times you find yourself listening to her speak informally on TV…put down your coffee cup or your beer!

I’m going to resist the urge to call Gov. Napolitano “Janet Reno’s ‘Mini-Me’” (whoa, see how I did it anyway? Hee-hee.)…but, let’s face it, the similarities are there: both are, ahem, “lifelong bachelorettes”…with sensible hair and shoes…and “sturdy builds.” But, to be serious (and nobody outside Arizona believes this!) — the question of her sexual orientation has never come up, publicly, in any of her election campaigns. (Now, privately - that’s another matter!)

What kind of a Homeland Security Director will she make? I’d say pretty good. Look, the only thing we really have to judge whether a Homeland Security Director is worth a damn is how they look during the supposedly impromptu “Media Opportunity” after each natural or man-made disaster. Think back on all the stiff, stumbling, and insincere “performances” of Michael Chertoff or Tom Ridge! Blecchhh! Well, Napolitano is different. At least she can ACT the part. Every summer, when 2 or 3 whole Arizona counties decide to completely burn themselves up, she’s right there, “Janet-on-the-spot,” in between the TV cameras and a bunch of firefighters several feet taller than her. But, God love her, she’s got this Annie Oakley-persona full of earnestness and gumption and moxie – shit, you could actually picture her helping out with the firehoses and the shovels, and then having a couple beers with the fire crew afterwards!

One other thing I have to mention that’s not hugely important, but it is somewhat interesting in a “strange coincidences the Universe pulls on us” sort of way. And, what the heck, this could actually win you some weird bar bet some time (or not). Anyway, this is it: if and when Napolitano becomes Homeland Security Director, she will be succeeded as Governor by the Secretary of State, a woman named Jan Brewer; and the Governor before Napolitano was Jane Hull. Ergo: come January 20, the state of Arizona will have had THREE consecutive FEMALE governors named: “Jane,” “Janet,” and “Jan.”

“Jane…Janet…Jan.”

Make of that what you will. (I personally think it’d make a helluva Mantra or chant to open meetings of N.O.W., or better yet, EMILY’S LIST, the organization devoted to getting more women elected. You’re welcome, gals — just be sure and spell my name right on the royalty checks!)

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Well, for those who haven’t heard, the Heritage Auction of original MAD art (see posts below) was held last Friday and took in an amazing $750,000 - more than double the pre-auction estimates. Good for them! That should keep the DC/TIME, Inc. wolves away from the magazine’s door for awhile longer.

The piece fetching the highest price was, as expected, the original Norman Mingo cover art for MAD #30 (December 1956) - the first cover with Alfred E. Neuman and the phrase “What - me worry?” It sold for an impressive $203,150 (including the auction house’s commission) — which I read is the most ever paid for a piece of original comic art.

The AP story about this auction also says: “A Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter who requested anonymity was the winning bidder of three other MAD art covers.” Ooooh! I love a Mystery! Now, who could that be? My first guess was the composer of the haunting and immortal 1965 MAD ditty, “It’s a Gas!” But then I remembered the old Grammy bias against “pressed-onto-cardboard-&-stuck-inside-a-magazine” recordings, so…nix that one. Second guess - one I’m sure has already occurred to many of you –  “Weird Al” Yankovich. But, alas, this is also a “nix”: Al is actually a 3-time Grammy WINNER, in addition to “nominee,” and nobody in show biz ever UNDER-states their credits, even when trying to be anonymous! Well, those two guesses have left me tired out and in need of a nap…so how about some guesses from YOU all? Just put them in the comments, and if we ever find out who the mystery bidder actually is, I’ll present the winner with…uhh,  a virtual gold star!

ONE FINAL NOTE directed at the winning bidders and new owners of the MAD art who may be generously considering Dick DeBartolo’s suggestion to donate them back to magazine: DON’T do it! The DC vampires would just sell them again! Donate them to Dick personally, or to someone in Bill Gaines’ family — hell, even one of the editorial interns would appreciate it more!

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[Note: In a display of impeccable timing, here now is this blog's first post about "MAD-TV" -- the very week it's being CANCELED by the Fox Network after 14 years on the air!]

There’s never been much of a connection between the show and the magazine besides the name and few trademark characters (such as Spy vs. Spy and Alfred’s face); and the few MAD Magazine writers who ever wrote on the show (Arnie Kogen being the only one that comes to my mind). Oh, and then there’s the matter of the “chunk of change” MAD gets from the show’s production company for using the MAD name & stuff on every episode. I’ve heard conflicting stories about how much money that actually is - ranging from “eye-popping” to “eh, not much” - but whatever the amount, it can’t be good to be losing ANY revenue stream at a time when you’ve just been forced to sell off the last of your original cover art (that you swore you’d never sell, “no matter how high the offer!”)

Our first look at MAD TV, even before its premiere in the fall of 1995, was when the magazine offices sent out to all of us a preview dub-tape of a few partial episodes. Lots of people, including me, were actually quite surprised at how good it was…and also a little confused about how the name “MAD” related to this particular sketch-comedy show.

Even though there was a lot of head-scratching at first, the appeal of using the pre-existing MAD “brand” to try and jump-start a new TV comedy show is pretty obvious (if somewhat “strained” in this case). But, surprise, surprise: it soon became a case of the tail wagging the dog as MAD-TV rather quickly caught on and actually (gasp!) exceeded the magazine in popularity. Even in its worst ratings years — say, last year — the show attracted well over 10 times the number of eyeballs as the magazine, which has been bumping along the bottom with a paid circulation of around 200,000 for most of the past decade.

(To those of us associated with the magazine, the most obvious sign of its being eclipsing by the show is the total change in likely responses we get from “civilians” whenever we say “I write/draw for MAD Magazine.” Before the show, it was always either “Oh, I used to read MAD as a kid” or “Are they still around?” Ever since the show first took off, it’s been “‘There’s a MAD Magazine?!! Never heard of it.” or “Is that anything like MAD-TV?”)

One other impact of the show’s popularity: it was generally a lot more “edgy” (that word again!) than the magazine or even than its TV big-brother, Saturday Night Live — especially when it came to the subject matter of Race. I’m sure that this brought added pressure down on the magazine to be more edgy itself — that’s my own recollection, verified by a quick rifling through my old MAD papers for the sudden increase about this time in Editor’s Memos about “getting more edgy”. Not to mention the infamous Issue #356 (April 1997), MAD’s largest single leap into alleged “edginess”…and, I’m pretty sure, also its greatest “Irate-Letter-Generating” issue, to date.

David Saltzman, the co-producer of MAD-TV, is quoted in Variety as saying they’re hopeful about getting the show picked up by another network for next year. Good. I think it’s a show worth saving. If for no other reason than having something around to keep the name “MAD” alive.

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If you’ve been anywhere near a radio this past week, you know that Christmas music has started! (In fact, some stations were already playing it on Halloween Day!) Am I the only one who finds it a little unsettling? No, not just the extra-early onset of Christmas music…I’m talking about the actual Christmas songs they’re playing this year:

• “I’m Dreaming of Still Having a Job This Christmas”
• “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like the 1930s”
• “All I want for Christmas is some Food Stamps”
  
• “Let there be Credit Market Liquidity on Earth”
  
• “I saw Mommy ‘doing’ Santa for some extra Christmas money”
  
• “Deck the Halls with Eviction Notices”
  
• “I’ll be Homeless for Christmas”
  
• “Jingle Bailout”
  
• “Rockin’ Around the Picture of Last Year’s Christmas Tree”
  
• “Here we come a-panhandling”
  
• “Gramma got run over by another banker in a BMW committing suicide”

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Every four years, we elect a President; and every four years, we turn into a nation of Sore Losers & Sore Winners for weeks or months after the election.

Since it’s almost that time, how about if we all take the pledge…c’mon, raise your right hand and repeat after me…

If my candidate LOSES:

• I PLEDGE not to spend all my waking hours for the next several weeks threatening to move to Canada, or a militia compound in Montana…however, in the event that I can’t resist such moaning & groaning, I PLEDGE to do all my irritated friends & co-workers a big favor and actually MOVE!
• I PLEDGE not to rant and rail against entire states as if they were living, sentient beings whose “RED-ness” or “BLUE-ness” makes it reasonable for me to hate them.
• I PLEDGE to only start screaming “Vote Fraud!” and “Stolen Election!” if there IS something to support such claims besides my candidate losing.
• I PLEDGE to look on the bright side: at least my candidate will be able to sit on the sidelines saying “I told you so!” as the other candidate “crashes and burns” while in office!

If my candidate WINS…

• I PLEDGE to celebrate in moderation — as if I am aware of the fact that it’s likely to be months or years before it can definitively be said whether I, or anyone I know, actually “won” anything or not!
• I PLEDGE not to be that surprised, shocked, and depressed when, in spite of all the soaring campaign rhetoric I bought into, my candidate turns out to be…just a politician!
• I PLEDGE to humbly remember that, in 4 years time, I will be defending all the mistakes and stupid statements my candidate will have inevitably made as the incumbent!
• I PLEDGE to keep in mind that, with the extremely dire economic situation my candidate will now be expected to actually FIX…it’s a toss-up whether history will remember him as “the second F.D.R.” or “the second Herbert Hoover!”

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More about the Heritage Auction of the LAST pieces of original MAD art that I talked about in my last post: I must be getting Old-Timer’s Disease or something - because I had read years earlier, but forgotten, that Frank Jacobs, in the book “MAD - Cover to Cover,” referred to the very same original cover art that is among those now being auctioned off as “Soul of MAD“-covers, the early iconic Alfred E. Neuman covers which would “never be sold, no matter how high the offer.” Obviously something has happened between that line-in-the-sand declaration and now. Something that, oh, I’m guessing starts with the letters “DC“…as in “DC Comics, a division of soul-less media behemoth TIME-WARNER,” MAD’s bean-counting bosses these days.

I was reminded of the ‘We’ll NEVER sell these covers‘ quote by a commenter on MAD’s own message boards at madmag.com (Hey, I’m their most loyal reader!). But what floored me even more was the response to that comment by veteran MAD Writer Dick DeBartolo (who regularly comment-responds on the site):

Frank Jacobs was slightly mistaken in his wonderful book. Those covers were not the soul of MAD, but appendics [sic] of MAD. And due to a rupture, they must be removed. The MAD offices will still feature exact copies of the originals and you can be sure we will continue to pass them off as the true originals. But in the meantime you get to bid on covers that were the very soul of MAD! Furthermore, if you’re high bidder and win them, should you still feel bad, you could always donate them back to us!

Wow. Unless ‘ruptured appendix‘ is Dick’s code-phrase for what DC is doing to them generally, that whole thing seems like an extremely nonchalant and inappropriately “make-happy” comment, given the ominous circumstances. The only wisp of a hint of the possibility that they’re being involuntarily forced to sell off the MAD “treasures” (and that they’re not happy about it), is the last little bit about the high-bidders maybe donating the art back to the magazine.

So…if you’re looking for clues about the state of the magazine in their public utterances…you’re probably out of luck. My guess is, they’ll probably be trying to make it look like everything is swell, and their future’s so bright they have to wear shades….right up until the microsecond that DC Comics issues the press release that they’re shutting down MAD for good.

Tags: MAD topics // 1 Comment »

Well, I’m not sure if this news falls into the category of “alarming for the near-term future of the magazine,” but MAD is selling at auction what they say is the LAST of the original art from their vaults. (And it must REALLY be the “last,” because they said the auction 2 years ago was the “last” stuff they had.)

They’re auctioning off mostly MAD covers from the late 50s and 60s — some of the classic ones that I loved as a kid, even more so after I became a regular writer for the magazine and started comparing them to new MAD covers as they appeared. Sometime in the 70s, the archetypal “Alfred E. Neuman-as-the-hot-new Movie or TV character“-cover took over; personally, I found that trend crass and pandering in a way that the old MAD covers definitely were not. Old MAD covers usually featured just Alfred and some comical demonstration of his imbecility, or maybe a surreal, M.C. Escher-like optical illusion, and basically said to the potential reader, “Take us or leave us, we don’t care — these are the kind of covers we like, dammit!”

I’ve always thought the “Alfred-morphing” covers were the lamest (conceptually, not artistically) — especially ones where there was nothing else “there” except the Alfred-substitution and maybe a simplistic turning-around of an actual phrase or saying — the most recent lame example being the “Yes, We Can’t!” sign held up by “Alfred-morphed-into-Barack Obama” on the cover of MAD #493. Yawwwwwn. (In fairness, though, I ought to disclose that the Alfred E. Obama cover made my teenage nephew laugh out loud.)

So, definitely check out the MAD Art at Heritage Auctions. There’s some really great stuff there — including a few I wouldn’t mind trying to snag for myself, that is, IF my personal-playthings budget were 1 or 2 orders of magnitude greater than it is! The pre-auction estimates have most of these covers going for $5,000-$10,000 each. But if you’re a filthy rich MAD nut who still has “buckage” to blow after the recent economic meltdown, go do some shopping! (Heck, you might even be helping save the magazine for an additional month or two!)

(BTW: One nice little “bonus” of the previous MAD Art auctions - literally –was that we writers actually got a little taste of the action, as well as the artists, if the art sold was based on ideas or scripts written by us. Last year, I received a $600 check for art sold at the 2006 Heritage Auction that was drawn for articles I wrote years ago! I have no idea whether they’re legally required to do that or not…but either way: Thanks, guys!)

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