MAD Magazine is set to release its final two issues with new content – after that, future editions of the longtime satirical staple will only feature classic content from the nearly seven decades that it’s been in business.
The magazine was the subject of reports that it was ceasing production on Wednesday night – that’s not quite what’s happening.
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MAD Magazine owner DC Comics told Global News that it’s not ceasing production, but that it will leave newsstands after issue number nine, which will come with all-new content in early August.
After that, issue number 10 will feature new content but only be available to customers through subscriptions and the “direct market” – meaning comic book shops.
Subsequent issues of MAD will feature “classic, best-of and nostalgic content from the last 67 years.”
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Some employees, though not all, have been let go from the magazine because there will “no longer be new content and thus no need for staff to create and edit new content.”
The only new content will be featured in the magazine’s end-of-year special.
That will be all new, said DC Comics.
MAD began life as a comic in 1952, with its iconic character Alfred E. Neuman making his debut four years later.
Neuman became known for his catchphrase, “What? Me worry?”
The magazine’s circulation would grow to over 2 million in the 1970s, having built a reputation for skewering the famous and powerful, and encouraging people to question what they’re being told.
“The editorial mission statement has always been the same: ‘everyone is lying to you, including magazines. Think for yourself. Question authority,'” editor John Ficarra told Fast Company in 2012.
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