Mark Evanier recently posted an
item saying that
Mad magazine is about to reduce it's publication schedule from monthly to quarterly, perhaps the first step to ceasing print publication altogether.
I haven't more than flipped through an issue of Mad in probably 30+ years, but I consider this sad news nonetheless (and not just because of how representative it is of the magazine publishing industry as a whole). I've spent considerable time and effort researching the relationship between comedy and politics in the second half of the twentieth century, and one of the surest conclusions I've been able to draw is that Mad was one of the three most influential forces affecting virtually all American humor since the 1950s (along with comedian Mort Sahl and the Second City improvisation troupe).
It's highly improbable that Harvey Kurtzman (first editor), Al Feldstein (his successor) or William Gaines (longtime publisher) had any idea of the impact their comic would have, but in hindsight there's little doubt that it was instrumental in shaping the audience for satire that would come of age in the 1960s and beyond. It's hard to imagine such landmarks of American humor as Doonesbury, the National Lampoon (and its spin-off enterprises, especially in film), David Letterman and The Simpsons as emerging without the solid foundation laid by Mad. Here's hoping this current set-back doesn't cause folks to forget that fact.
Mark Evanier recently posted an item saying that Mad magazine is about to reduce it's publication schedule from monthly to quarterly, perhaps the first step to ceasing print publication altogether. I haven't more than flipped through an issue of Mad in probably 30+ years, but I consider this sad news nonetheless (and not just because of how representative it is of the magazine publishing industry as a whole). I've spent considerable time and effort researching the relationship between comedy and politics in the second half of the twentieth century, and one of the surest conclusions I've been able to draw is that Mad was one of the three most influential forces affecting virtually all American humor since the 1950s (along with comedian Mort Sahl and the Second City improvisation troupe). 
It's highly improbable that Harvey Kurtzman (first editor), Al Feldstein (his successor) or William Gaines (longtime publisher) had any idea of the impact their comic would have, but in hindsight there's little doubt that it was instrumental in shaping the audience for satire that would come of age in the 1960s and beyond. It's hard to imagine such landmarks of American humor as Doonesbury, the National Lampoon (and its spin-off enterprises, especially in film), David Letterman and The Simpsons as emerging without the solid foundation laid by Mad. Here's hoping this current set-back doesn't cause folks to forget that fact.
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