The weekend is almost here and we’re sure you’re spending it seeing Spider-Man: Far From Home! We know we are (again). Sound off what geeky things you all will be doing. While you wait for the workday to end and the weekend to officially begin, here’s some comic news and reviews from around the web.
Numerous rumors have been swirling regarding the future of MAD Magazine in the last 24 hours with some claiming that the influential magazine was ending and others claiming they’re still making new material. As usual, the truth is somewhere in between.
While DC, the magazine’s publisher, hasn’t released an official statement, we’ve received more details from well-placed sources.
Due to lagging newsstand sales, MAD will no longer be found there. Instead, the magazine will still be available in comic shops, aka the direct market, as well as subscribers.
When it comes to new material, after issue #10 this fall, there will no longer will be new content in the monthly magazine. There WILL be new material in the end-of-year specials which will always be new.
Starting in MAD Magazine #11 it will feature “classic,” “best-of,” and nostalgic content from the last 67 years.
DC will also continue to publish MAD books and special collections.
Launched in 1952 by Harvey Kurtzman and William Gaines, the magazine received a relaunch and new #1 issue in 2018.
Hivemind has announced a new partnership with William M. Gaines Agent, Inc., the proprietors of EC Comics, for a number of film and television projects based on the hugely influential – and often controversial – comic book publisher’s groundbreaking legacy and library. One of the first endeavors of the partnership will be Weird Fantasy – a new television show inspired by the shocking and subversive sci-fi/fantasy series that collided visionary genre storytelling with socially conscious themes of racial and gender equality, anti-war advocacy, nuclear disarmament and ecological preservation to create some of the most impactful and hotly debated comic book stories ever produced. This is the first time that WMG Agent Inc. has made Weird Fantasy available for adaptation in more than two decades.
Changing the industry seemingly overnight in the early 1950s under the stewardship of publisher and writer William M. Gaines, EC Comics quickly became the dominant force of the era’s booming comic book industry, selling tens of millions of copies annually and generating intense, nationwide controversies with taboo-smashing, confrontational stories in series like Tales From the Crypt and MAD Magazine. EC’s unique formula eschewed superheroes in favor of science fiction, fantasy, war, horror, and humor – redefining comics storytelling with a newly sophisticated and artist-driven approach that would pave the way for the ascendancy of both Marvel Comics and the counterculture underground in the decades to come.
A lynchpin of the EC line during the publisher’s creative watershed,Weird Fantasy produced dozens of seminal stories that intersected razor-sharp social commentary with epic science fiction, high adventure and dark fantasy by some of the most celebrated comics creators to ever work in the medium, including Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, and Harvey Kurtzman. Weird Fantasy‘s defiantly rebellious sensibility is perhaps best exemplified by “Judgment Day” – a history-making story by William M. Gaines, Al Feldstein, and Joe Orlando that championed the then-burgeoning Civil Rights movement and provoked a showdown with the Comics Code Authority, the pro-censorship organization that policed and sanitized the comic book industry for more than 50 years.
The new partnership is also slated to include a feature film based on the life of William M. Gaines, the former EC Comics publisher and self-styled comics provocateur who challenged the rigid moral code of 1950s America with shockingly innovative and deeply subversive tales of fantasy, horror and humor that sold in the millions…only to find his company investigated by Congress and his books burned in the streets in the wake of EC’s staggering success. Chronicling one of the greatest untold chapters in American history, the film will follow Gaines’ transformation from a staid, New York publishing impresario into a counterculture hero, guardian of artistic freedom, and champion of the First Amendment as his darkly humorous journey through the troubled birth of the comic book industry reveals the Red Scare-era witch hunt that nearly doomed an American art form, through the subsequent founding of MAD Magazine and eventual rise of Marvel Comics in EC’s wake.
Both projects will be produced by Gaines’ daughter and grandson, Cathy Mifsud and Corey Mifsud, for EC, alongside Dinesh Shamdasani, Sean Daniel, Jason F. Brown, and Hunter Gorinson for Hivemind. The projects will mark Gorinson’s first for Hivemind, where he also has joined as VP Brand & Content Strategy.
It’s Wednesday which means it’s new comic book day with new releases hitting shelves, both physical and digital, all across the world. This week we’ve got MAD doing Superman?!
MAD Presents Superman and the Miserable, Rotten, No Fun, Really Bad Day is by Dave Croatto and Tom Richmond.
Get your copy now ijn comic shops and boostores on Ocotber 17. To find a comic shop near you, visit www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.
DC Comics provided Graphic Policy with FREE copies for review This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and make a purchase, we’ll receive a percentage of the sale. Graphic Policy does purchase items from this site. Making purchases through these links helps support the site.
During New York Comic Con, DC Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee used their “Meet the Publishers” panel to kick of the Con and give a “State of the Union” overview of what comic fans can expect next from the home of the World’s Greatest Super Heroes.
At this year’s panel bestselling writer Grant Morrison made a surprise appearance. Morrison didn’t come empty handed either; lucky fans got a chance to see the newest art from longtime collaborator Yanick Paquette from their upcoming original graphic novel, Wonder Woman Earth One Vol. 2. Grant talked with Dan and Jim about his vision for this next chapter of Diana’s journey through Man’s world and what surprises readers can expect along the way.
The publishers had a little more “Morrison” in store for fans when they introduced Eisner award-winning artist and National Cartoonists Society president Bill Morrison as the new Executive Editor of MAD Magazine. Bill chatted with Dan and Jim about the legacy of MAD, the transition from New York to Burbank and his vision for continuing MAD Magazine’s role as America’s #1 home for humor and satire (in a field of one).
Are you MAD About Trump? There is no president in American history more deserving of being mercilessly mocked, relentlessly ridiculed and savagely satirized than Donald Trump. Luckily, MAD Magazine is here to do the job! #MADaboutTrump
An all-out comedic assault on the most idiotic idiot ever to reach the White House (George W. Bush and visitors included)! In these 128 pages, is a full-out assail to the chief, spoofing every aspect of Donald Trump’s career.
eaturing a foreword by CNN correspondent Jake Tapper, this book offers MAD’s best reprinted material with the sharpest satiric shots at “The Donald,” comically chronicling his rise from obnoxious businessman to really obnoxious reality show host to uber obnoxious “Commander-in-Tweet.” It’s going to be very, very, very good. Very good.
Please note: MAD will not offer refunds on this book in the likely event of President Trump’s impeachment. Sad!
MAD About Trump: A Brilliant Look at Our Brainless President will be available in bookstores everywhere on Tuesday, June 20th.
In the midst of the Republican National Convention this week, MAD Magazine has released a new e-book, MAD Dumps on Trump.
The e-book is a collection of MAD’s best satire on Donald Trump throughout the years and the cover is from MAD’s year end issue, which highlighted MAD’s “20 Dumbest People, Things and Events of 2015,” illustrated by award-winning artist, Mark Fredrickson.
The e-book is available now via the MAD website, and is free to read online. There is also an exclusive subscriber version that includes bonus material with famous MAD spoofs on Hillary Clinton.
MAD also recently released a poster with their last issue’s cover featuring Donald Trump and the slogan “Make America Dumb Again.”
Venture into Batman’s secret lair with the “Usual Gang Of Idiots” at MAD Magazine as they try to put the Dark Knight to rest in the all-new story, Goodnight Batcave. Just in time for the holidays, the in(famous) comedy writers at MAD mix legendary DC Comics heroes and villains to create the 100% unauthorized Goodnight Moon parody, available November 2.
Batman may be ready for bed — but crime never sleeps! And before the Caped Crusader can turn in for the night, he’ll have to deal with villains like the Joker, Bane, Mr. Freeze, Catwoman and the Penguin. If the Dark Knight hopes to ever catch some Zs, he’ll have to catch Gotham’s most dangerous criminals first!
Written by MAD editor Dave Croatto and illustrated by MAD artist Tom Richmond, the ridiculously funny parody will be available in stores and online November 2 for the price of $14.99.
Award-winning cartoonist and working MAD Magazine legend, Al Jaffee turns 95 today!
Jaffee has been with MAD for 61 years and remarkably is still the mind and hands behind the iconic “Fold-In” of the New York publishing institution – making him the publication’s longest-running contributor. A Reuben Award winner in 2008 and Eisner Hall of Fame recipient in 2013, Jaffee will receive the prestigious Medal of Honor from the National Cartoonists Society in April.
Jaffee first appeared in MAD in 1955, leaving the magazine briefly. In 1964 he created the feature he’s most know for and expected to only to do it for one issue. It was intended as a satire of the fold-outs in Playboy. It clearly lasted longer as he was asked to do a second one and it became a regular feature of the magazine.
His work has been featured in around 500 issues and on top of the fold-ins he’s been a writer and artist for the magazine.
Many of us here at GP remember the fun of folding the back of our MAD back pages and wish Jaffee a Happy Birthday!
On July 9th at Comic-Con International: San Diego, MAD Magazine Editor in Chief John Ficarra delighted longtime fans with the announcement of Spy vs. Spy: An Explosive Celebration. The newest Spy installment will feature 150 Spy vs. Spy adventures, presented for the first time in full color, Spy vs. Spy trivia and stats and an appreciation and selection of strips by long-time Spy vs. Spy artist Peter Kuper.
The new Spy vs. Spy collection is filled with lots of extras both longtime fans and first-time agent provocateurs will love, including a new foreword by angry-faced comedian Lewis Black and a new graphic remembrance, “My Friend Antonio,” written and illustrated by world-renowned cartoonist Sergio Aragones.
Spy vs. Spy: An Explosive Celebration will include 11 never before seen and four classic Spy vs. Spy art images, commissioned by an all-star lineup of comic and graphic artists: Orlando Arocena, Peter Bagge, Tom Bunk, André Carrilho, Darwyn Cooke, Evan Dorkin, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Jim Lee, Hermann Mejia, Tony Millionaire, Yuko Shimizu, Bill Sienkiewicz, Bob Staake and Richard Webber. The book will also feature never-before seen images of a large-scale LEGO sculpture created by internationally acclaimed brick artist, Nathan Sawaya.
On July 9th at Comic-Con International: San Diego, MAD Magazine Editor in Chief John Ficarra delighted longtime fans with the announcement of Spy vs. Spy: An Explosive Celebration. The newest Spy installment will feature 150 Spy vs. Spy adventures, presented for the first time in full color, Spy vs. Spy trivia and stats and an appreciation and selection of strips by long-time Spy vs. Spy artist Peter Kuper.