Wanna know what's up with MAD? Issue #10 comes out October 8 and it will be available in comic book shops and certain specialty shops and by mail but it will not be on mainstream newsstands. This is not the last issue as many have understood and a person on the MAD staff with whom I recently spoke seemed pretty frustrated that people think that. To be accurate, this person said, this is the last issue with all-new content.
There is confusion aplenty here. I pointed out to this person that in recent years of declining sales, MAD has often snuck in "classic" reprints so it's been quite a while since MAD consistently had all-new content. It would also be wrong to believe as many do that MAD will henceforth be all-reprint since #11 and issues to follow will have new covers and some new content. Sergio Aragonés is still working on material for them and others are, as well. The mag will just be mostly-reprint.
And even that, I suspect, will not last forever. This is not a news item. It's just me suspecting…but I'd bet a front tooth implant for Alfred E. Neuman that we will see the day soon when MAD shifts back to all or mostly-new material. The magazine's star caricaturist Tom Richmond says on his blog that "There will be no more new movie or TV parodies." That's true right now but it'll change. MAD will not become more popular as it has less and less to do with the world today.