MAD Magazine

I grew up on MAD magazines and loved them - Spy v. Spy, Sergio Aragones, the fold-in back page, the satire, . . . .so I bought a copy at Half-Price Books. The April 2004 edition, I found the humor to be nasty and the magazine that I loved so much as a kid to be mean and pointless. Sigh. Growing up and maturing is a good thing, but I sometimes miss my childhood. I am glad I can find humor elsewhere. And I wonder how much my addictive reading of these as a kid shaped my attitudes . . . I won't miss the magazines, but wanted to record my thoughts here.

(When I started teaching at NPMS in 1997, the library had a subscription. I read one to refresh my memory and there was a LOT more sexual content and drug humor than I remembered from my own childhood. I cancelled that subscription!)

MAD Kids

paperback magazine, Carver County Library

A student asked me to get this for CMSW, so I got a public library copy to make up my mind.

- clean enough (regular MAD has some pretty intense drug & sex humor)
- interesting variety of comics, interviews, and other features
- I remember some of the cartoons from twenty years ago in regular MAD! They're re-using some material.
- only 4 issues per year . . . it would take a long time to build up enough issues to check out back copies.

I think I'll just refer kids to the public library on this one. They could also take a look at Nickelodeon magazine.