Eulogies for MAD magazine.
[Peter Kuper has] been drawing the Spy vs Spy cartoons in the magazine for the past 23 years. [Shortly after the bad MAD news broke] he spoke with As It Happens guest host Susan Bonner about what Mad means to him.
In one form or another, as you said, because it’s been embedded in so many other art forms, it will be there no matter what.
Artists like myself who have been so influenced by it are going to continue to do something that is essentially the result of Harvey Kurtzman’s influence and Mad’s influence over the years.
You’ll see Mad around no matter what, as long as we live in this mad, mad world.
MAD shaped who I became as a cartoonist, as a comedian and as a deranged man-child of a human today.
I’m endlessly grateful for having got to spend so much time with the Usual Gang of Idiots these last 5 years, to call them friends and finally, in a surreal twist, colleagues.
Being published in MAD was a massive life-long dream, and I’m grateful to have been part of it before the door slowly swung shut.
“I love the magazine but you know it’s owned by a giant corporation and they wanted to make more money and print is not always making as much money as everybody would like right now.” Dakota McFadzean said.
“Nothing in my career has come close to the feeling of joining the Usual Gang of Idiots in Mad Magazine,” McFadzean said in a tweet.
The Nib’s Matt Bors …
and American Bystander’s Michael Gerber …
Want to take on the task of reviving MAD.
And while the valuable brand won’t be sold, it could be leased.
Tom Richmond and Mark Evanier give us straws to grasp that it may not be the end.
This is all my fault. If only I’d sent them that article, they’d still be on top of the world, the toast of the town, riding a rainbow.
I join Mr. Evanier in his optimism, though. They couldn’t kill LIFE Magaine, or Twinkies, and it might not be the same MAD I knew (it already wasn’t), but there’ll be something.
Kudos to CRACKED for that tweet.