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Mad Magazine Archives.pdf: How the Irreverent Magazine Changed the Face of Humor



A: We have listened to our fans through tweets, emails, Facebook, and millions of two complaints via Google+ - the experience of reading issues on the MAD App left much to be desired. We want our fans who like to read the magazine digitally to have as enjoyable and effortless reading experience as those who read the print edition. Needless to say, our App was not providing this experience.




Mad Magazine Archives.pdf



Effective immediately, we are moving our MAD digital reading experience from our own iPad-only app to Magzter, a company specialized in bringing magazines to digital audiences. Fans can now read MAD digitally on their iOS device, Android, Amazon Fire, or online at Magzter.com.


Besides, the free MAD magazine back issues online, I have also included MAD magazine books, MAD paperbacks, and MAD special editions.


You just click on any of the link on this page, and you can start enjoy reading all the free MAD magazine pdf, filled with humorous articles, quirky quotes and amusing cartoons.


Among the MAD magazine artists and writers are: Jack Davis, Sergio Aragonés, Mort Drucker, Don Martin, Dave Berg, George Woodbridge, Al Jaffee, Paul Coker, Sam Viviano, Dick DeBartolo, Stan Hart, Frank Jacobs, Tom Koch, and many more loonies.


Disclaimer: I do not publish or host any of the magazines and books here. They are copyrighted to their respective owners. All content cited is derived from their respective sources.


This list of film spoofs in Mad includes films spoofed (parodied) by the American comic magazine Mad. Usually, an issue of Mad features a spoof of at least one feature film or television program. The works selected by the staff of Mad are typically from cinema and television in the United States.


These articles typically cover five pages or more, and are presented as a sequential storyline with caricatures and word balloons. The opening page or two-page splash usually consists of the cast of the show introducing themselves directly to the reader; in some parodies, the writers sometimes attempt to circumvent this convention by presenting the characters without such direct exposition. This approach was also used for Mad's television parodies, and came to be identified with the magazine. The style was widely copied by other humor publications. In 1973, the promotional movie poster for Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye was designed in the introductory manner of a Mad parody, including the rectangular word balloons with self-referential dialogue; for verisimilitude, the poster was written and drawn by Mad regulars Frank Jacobs and Jack Davis.


Mad (stylized as MAD) was an American humor magazine founded in 1952 by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines, launched as a comic book before it became a magazine. It was widely imitated and influential, affecting satirical media, as well as the cultural landscape of the 20th century. Mad published 550 regular issues, as well as hundreds of reprint "Specials", original-material paperbacks, reprint compilation books and other print projects. Mad's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, is typically the focal point of the magazine's cover, with his face often replacing that of a celebrity or character who is lampooned within the issue. On July 3, 2019, it was widely reported that Mad would no longer be sold on newsstands by the end of the year; additionally, outside of end-of-year review issues, publication of future issues will no longer feature new content, with the magazine instead relying on reprinting classic content from its nearly 67-year history. (Wikipedia)


The magazine, which is the last surviving title from the EC Comics line, publishes satire on all aspects of life and popular culture, politics, entertainment, and public figures. Its format includes TV and movie parodies, and satire articles about everyday occurrences that are changed to seem humorous. Mad's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, is often on the cover, with his face replacing that of a celebrity or character who is being lampooned.


From 1952 to 2018, Mad published 550 regular magazine issues, as well as scores of reprint "Specials", original-material paperbacks, reprint compilation books and other print projects. After AT&T acquired Time Warner in June 2018, Mad ended newsstand distribution, continuing in comic-book stores and via subscription.


To retain Kurtzman as its editor, the comic book converted to magazine format as of issue No. 24, in 1955. The switchover induced Kurtzman to remain for one more year, but the move had removed Mad from the strictures of the Comics Code Authority. William Gaines related in 1992 that Mad "was not changed [into a magazine] to avoid the Code" but "as a result of this [change of format] it did avoid the Code."[4] Gaines claimed that Kurtzman had at the time received "a very lucrative offer from...Pageant magazine," and seeing as he, Kurtzman, "had, prior to that time, evinced an interest in changing Mad into a magazine," Gaines, "not know[ing] anything about publishing magazines," countered that offer by allowing Kurtzman to make the change. Gaines further stated that "if Harvey [Kurtzman] had not gotten that offer from Pageant, Mad probably would not have changed format."[4]


After Kurtzman's departure in 1956, new editor Al Feldstein swiftly brought aboard contributors such as Don Martin, Frank Jacobs, and Mort Drucker, and later Antonio Prohías, Dave Berg, and Sergio Aragonés. The magazine's circulation more than quadrupled during Feldstein's tenure, peaking at 2,132,655 in 1974; it later declined to a third of this figure by the end of his time as editor.[5]


In its earliest incarnation, new issues of the magazine appeared erratically, between four and nine times a year. By the end of 1958, Mad had settled on an unusual eight-times-a-year schedule,[6] which lasted almost four decades.[7][8] Issues would go on sale 7 to 9 weeks before the start of the month listed on the cover. Gaines felt the atypical timing was necessary to maintain the magazine's level of quality. Beginning in 1994, Mad then began incrementally producing additional issues per year, until it reached a monthly schedule with issue No. 353 (Jan. 1997).[9][10] With its 500th issue (June 2009), amid company-wide cutbacks at Time Warner, the magazine temporarily regressed to a quarterly publication[2][11] before settling to six issues per year in 2010.[12]


Feldstein retired in 1985, and was replaced by the senior team of Nick Meglin and John Ficarra, who co-edited Mad for the next two decades. Long-time production artist Lenny "The Beard" Brenner was promoted to art director and Joe Raiola and Charlie Kadau joined the staff as junior editors. Following Gaines's death in 1992, Mad became more ingrained within the Time Warner (now WarnerMedia) corporate structure. Eventually, the magazine was obliged to abandon its long-time home at 485 Madison Avenue and in the mid-1990s it moved into DC Comics' offices at the same time that DC relocated to 1700 Broadway. In issue No. 403 of March 2001, the magazine broke its long-standing taboo and began running paid advertising. The outside revenue allowed the introduction of color printing[15] and improved paper stock. After Meglin retired in 2004, the team of Ficarra (as executive editor) Raiola and Kadau (as senior editors), and Sam Viviano, who had taken over as art director in 1999, would helm Mad for the next 14 years.


AT&T acquired Time Warner in June 2018.[22] Morrison exited Mad by March 2019, during a time of layoffs and restructuring at DC Entertainment.[23][24] After issue No. 10 (Dec. 2019) of the new Burbank edition, Mad began to consist almost entirely of curated reprints with new covers and fold-ins, with the exception of year-end specials and minimal amounts of new content. Distribution to newsstands stopped, with the magazine becoming available only through comic-book shops and by subscription.[25][26]


Mad's satiric net was cast wide. The magazine often featured parodies of ongoing American culture, including advertising campaigns, the nuclear family, the media, big business, education and publishing. In the 1960s and beyond, it satirized such burgeoning topics as the sexual revolution, hippies, the generation gap, psychoanalysis, gun politics, pollution, the Vietnam War and recreational drug use. The magazine took a generally negative tone towards counterculture drugs such as cannabis and LSD, but it also savaged mainstream drugs such as tobacco and alcohol. Mad always satirized Democrats as mercilessly as it did Republicans.[35] In 2007, Al Feldstein recalled, "We even used to rake the hippies over the coals. They were protesting the Vietnam War, but we took aspects of their culture and had fun with it. Mad was wide open. Bill loved it, and he was a capitalist Republican. I loved it, and I was a liberal Democrat. That went for the writers, too; they all had their own political leanings, and everybody had a voice. But the voices were mostly critical. It was social commentary, after all."[36] Mad also ran a good deal of less topical or contentious material on such varied subjects as fairy tales, nursery rhymes, greeting cards, sports, small talk, poetry, marriage, comic strips, awards shows, cars and many other areas of general interest.[37][38]


Plenty of it went right over my head, of course, but that's part of what made it attractive and valuable. Things that go over your head can make you raise your head a little higher.The magazine instilled in me a habit of mind, a way of thinking about a world rife with false fronts, small print, deceptive ads, booby traps, treacherous language, double standards, half truths, subliminal pitches and product placements; it warned me that I was often merely the target of people who claimed to be my friend; it prompted me to mistrust authority, to read between the lines, to take nothing at face value, to see patterns in the often shoddy construction of movies and TV shows; and it got me to think critically in a way that few actual humans charged with my care ever bothered to.[39] 2ff7e9595c


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