Today we changed the toner cartridge at MAD, and changed the kitty litter box too. (Yes sometimes the staff uses a kitty box during meetings so as not to miss anything, but that's another story.) And oh yes, there were some other changes at MAD too!
Starting with issue #500, which will come out in April, MAD will move to a quarterly publication schedule. MAD Kids, designed for younger readers, will cease publication with the issue on sale February 17th. And the final issue of MAD Classics will go on sale March 17th.
For the serious, hard-hitting inside story of this big change, let our own MAD Editor, John Ficarra explain. “The feedback we've gotten from readers is that only every third issue of MAD is funny, so we've decided to just publish those."
The cover price of the quarterly issues will be $5.99. Issue #501 will go on sale in August, with #502 in November. Issues of the magazine will be 56 pages, instead of the current 48 pages. “Remember, MAD started out as eight times a year, before going to 12 and now four.” said Ficarra, “Just as Nostradamus had predicted.
Dick DeBartolo will still be MAD's Maddest Writer, but now he'll only be MAD's Maddest Writer 4 times a year instead of the current 12 times a year. This will allow for a 2 month long coffee break every 3 months.
A few MAD Posters. Feel free to copy them and send them on to enemies, or even friends.
Here's a MAD Poster that really didn't appear anywhere!
Well, anywhere but on the Internet!
The editors felt It wouldn't still be timely enough for MAD 500 which has a June, 2009 cover date. So here it sits for your viewing pleasure! Feel free to cover it & set it to friends, dogs, cats, enemies, etc. But please don't send it to us. We have the original!
And in case you never played it, it's based on the kid's game OPERATION. That game is still around after all these years. Just like MAD!
The Giz Wiz is also MAD Magazine's Maddest Writer, so you'll find lots of MAD stuff on this website too! www.madmag.com.
IMad About the Movies Directors' Cut'
MAD About the Movies: Director’s Cut features more than sixty zany parodies of classic (and not-so-classic) movies first featured in MAD Magazine and rendered in full graphic glory by The Usual Gang of Idiots. Covering nearly seventy years of movie history, these classic spoofs show that there’s no film so sacred that it can’t be treated irreverently, no movie star so famous that he or she can’t be made fun of, and no script so dramatic that it can’t be twisted to show its amusing side. Some of the best-loved films of all time get their comic comeuppance here, among them: Gone with the Wind / Bonnie and Clyde/A Clockwork Orange/ Brokeback Mountain/Spider-Man / Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone/The Lord of the Rings (all three films!)
The book is another exclusive with Barnes and Noble’s own publishing division. So B&N is the only place you’ll be able to get a copy. But it’s one heck of a deal at $9.98! The book is about 200 pages thick. I wrote 88 of them. (Residuals? Yeah, right. Forget it!) Hmm, maybe that’s why it’s so inexpensive! http://tinyurl.com/5h8d6z
I wrote about eight of the movie satires in this book.
Suitable for hanging! No, not the writers & artists who came up with the stuff in this book, but the posters themselves! MAD Poster Book. Under $25.Great for the holidays, the MAD Poster Book features 15 ready to hang large size posters. One of my favorite things I ever wrote for MAD, is a satire on the famous Choking Poster. It was so much like the original I found a restaurant that actually had posted it on their wall. The Choking Poster is reproduced in this book. (No, I don’t make a penny from the book. MAD owns all rights for all times for everything they buy.) At bookstores, or on the web.
You can find it for under $20 at Barnes & Noble: http://tinyurl.com/469anb
This website is current only up to the end of April, 2009. My new website with everything from May 1st, 2009 forward is: www.gizwiz.biz.
