There's been much chatter, at least in my e-mailbox, about the status and fate of MAD Magazine. There's also been discussion over on the weblog of Mike Snider, one of that publication's wittier contributors.
I call to your attention this posting in which Mike graphs and discusses its circulation slide. Notice the descent did not begin with the popularity of the Internet. It probably has more to do with a general and growing disinterest in this country in the basic concept of buying magazines of any kind.
I also call to your attention this posting in which Mike responds to the news that MAD will be trimmed back to quarterly status. I think he's wrong, by the way, that it will soon cease publication completely. My feeling is its overlords will always keep some publication on the newsstands called MAD, even if it doesn't bear a great resemblance to the MAD we know and love.
And I especially call your attention, assuming you have any left, to this posting which is about Frank Jacobs, who I still think is the funniest poet and lyricist of our day.
Meanwhile, MAD artist Tom Richmond is reporting over on his site about recent reports of financial woes within Time-Warner that are probably not unrelated to what's going on with the magazine. As he also notes, some MAD fans have been fantasizing that some wealthy guy will swoop in, purchase MAD from Time-Warner and keep the publication going in the grand tradition. I'd say there's about a 0% chance of the corporation ever selling off so famous a brand name for any amount of money. Conceivably, they might allow an outsider to license the right to publish the magazine called MAD so they don't have to…but that would suppose there's someone out there who loves the thing enough to lose millions of dollars a year just to see it continue. Maybe they can apply for a federal bailout…