T.J. White wrote me to ask…
Howdy, Mark. So a few years ago, soon after the announced official end of MAD Magazine, I asked if you had ever at any time submitted any articles to MAD for publication. I didn't get a response and then, after belatedly checking Doug Gilford's MAD Cover Site, realized you WERE published in MAD! You're credited for an idea in the Jan. '94 issue ("Sergio Aragonés Looks at Cars"…photos of him raptly gazing at actual cars, along with a letter from the editor telling him to stick with drawing) and a one-pager piece "What's The Difference?" in the end of the June '96 issue, accompanied by Rick Tulka's usual wacky artwork. (Also the first issue of MAD I ever bought!)
So I'm curious, how did your lone official MAD article come to fruition? Did you submit any pieces in the past and this was finally the one that made it to print? Any attempts since that one to get published? If it was your first attempt, did you just decide to be like "Why not give this MAD writing a shot?" or were you called upon/recommended by a MAD person to provide a one-page filler article to bump that issue's page count up to its usual 48 pages?
Every career has its regrets and one of mine is that I passed up a number of opportunities to probably/possibly join The Usual Gang of Idiots as a regular contributor to MAD. I loved MAD and still prize my complete collection of that publication. I have two original MAD painted covers — one by Norman Mingo, one by Frank Kelly Freas — on a wall of my home. I even managed to add an actual longtime MAD cartoonist to my list of Best Friends. The magazine was and in some ways still is a very important part of my life.
In a way, I didn't pass up trying to write for MAD as much as I put it off, figuring the opportunity would always be there. Let that be a lesson to me. I also, in a way, knew too much about MAD…like in the sixties and seventies, I knew how difficult to break in there. Al Feldstein was the editor and I'd met him and knew enough about him to know how tough he was about buying from new writers. They also had plenty of "regulars" who were part of the extended family that the publisher Bill Gaines liked to have around him.
They turned down a lot of good people because they really didn't need new people. It was the same way with artists: Very few new ones got in because they had Drucker and Davis and Sergio and Dave Berg and Don Martin and Woodbridge and Jaffee and so on.
Later on, as some frequent contributors left or passed away, there were probably some promising times for me to pursue it but I didn't. Feldstein retired in 1985 and his job was filled by John Ficarra and Nick Meglin. I knew them both socially and liked them both and I should have submitted then but I was busy with this or that. I just plain put it off. In '94 or so, I finally sent them pitches for three articles and they bought one…just that one-pager. They urged me to send more but I was again, suddenly too busy with this or that. There were (and still are) a lot of things I wish I could make time for or did make time for.
None of this should be taken as a complaint or as me asking you to feel sorry for me. For a writer, there are a lot of worse things than not having the time to do everything you'd like to do. And right now, I think I'd like to have dinner. Thanks for the question, T.J.
