MAD Magazine Makes Me Sick To My Stomach

Last week I did a post about the unexpected ending of the long running comic book series, The Walking Dead. It was unexpected as it had not been solicited as a final issues and solicitations through September showed Image still publishing the series.

 

Robert Kirkman wanted the end of the series to be a surprise, catching the readers off guard as they entered their local comic shop to buy what they thought would be the latest issue of The Walking Dead only to discover on the last page that it was the LAST issue of The Walking Dead. Kirkman would’ve gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for that meddling internet as rumors began to swirl a couple of days out that a long running series would come to an end and it looked like it was going to be The Walking Dead.

 

It turns out that The Walking Dead wasn’t the only long term publishing enterprise to announce its end.

 

MAD Magazine was coming to an end.

 

Sort of.

 

The news of MAD’s impending demise leaked out when contributors to the long running humor magazine began going on social media looking for work. These entreaties for work got out ahead of any formal announcement from DC Entertainment, the current publisher of MAD Magazine.  But then the word was given.

 

MAD Magazine was coming to an end.

 

Sort of.

 

MAD Magazine was relaunched with a new #1 a year or so back. The word from DC was that MAD Magazine would publish new content through issue #10. Then MAD would continue as a reprint title. The covers will be new but the interior will be classic strips from MAD’s long and storied past.

 

Furthermore, MAD Magazine would be removed from broad newsstand distribution and would only be available through comic shops. 

 

MAD was the last bastion of comic book storytelling to be found in magazine racks in drug stores, convenience stores and the like. 

 

The move is attributable to declining sales which is not a complete surprise. Magazines of all types are dealing with shrinking markets and declining sales.

 

And MAD with its off beat humorous look at society and pop culture struggled to be relevant in an age when anyone can throw up a Stranger Things parody comic on their Reddit within hours of Season 3 dropping; that Stranger Things parody that MAD might do would be less topical when it goes to press three months later.

 

I have to admit I haven’t bought an issue of MAD in years, decades maybe? I own a couple of hardcover books about MAD but sadly, MAD and I got off to a bad start back when I was a kid.

This is where I explain the title of today's post: MAD Magazine Makes Me Sick To My Stomach

 

I reckon this was sometime around the fall of 1978. It was after the big DC Implosion when DC drastically cuts its line to barely 2 dozen titles. As a DC reader, I frequently found myself with more change in my pockets than DC comics to buy.  On one such occasion, I decided to give MAD a try.

 

That night, something happened. I don’t know if it was a bug or a virus or something I ate but over the course of the evening, I became increasingly nauseous.  As I leafed through my new issue of MAD, I was getting sicker and sicker on my stomach.

 

Eventually, I had to throw up. A lot. It was horrendous and bad. It was one my of the worst experiences of vomiting I had ever experienced in my young life.

 

Now I want to make this clear: I don’t blame MAD Magazine for making me sick to my stomach.

 

But ever since then, whenever I’ve looked through an issue of MAD Magazine in a convenience store or wherever, it still to this day makes me sick to my stomach.

 

Still, it’s a shame MAD has to die.