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During New York Comic Con, Editor-In-Chief John Ficarra spoke with MStars News about how Mad Magazine has stayed in the mainstream, keeping an eye on the pulse of pop culture. Known for its memorable Spy vs. Spy cartoon strips, and the iconic Alfred E. Neuman, the humor magazine is headings towards issue #530, after spoofing Miley Cryus, or Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's publicized marriage.
Readers were laughing out loud when they read the hilarious The 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things featuring Miley Cyrus and Kim & Kanye In... Monster Marriage! Now gearing up for issue #530, Mad readers will be treated with a 6-page spread of Orange Is The New Black, a hilarious TMZ parody, and a special 2015 Hobbit calendar.
MStars couldn't keep a straight face as Ficarra discussed the upcoming issue, their iconic Neuman, the history behind Spy vs. Spy, and what makes celebrity culture such a wonderful present.
MStars News: For new readers, what should they expect with the latest Mad Magazine issue #530?
John Ficarra: If you haven't seen Mad in awhile, you're going to be surprised I think, by first of all, the color and the new artists, the whole new generation of talent that's in there. Also I think they'll be surprised by the amount of photoshopping of the work in there.
My favorite thing in the issue is Tom Richmond's depiction of Orange Is The New Black. It's just a wonderful splash of artwork. And he must have, I want to say 30-35 caricatures on the two-page spread. All the characters from the show, right down to the most minor player. That's really Mad at its very best!
MS: Tell me about keeping an eye on pop culture, which the magazine keeps doing with every issue.
JF: It's exhausting! [Laughs] It's absolutely exhausting! Because there's so much happening now and everybody is screaming out, I spend a lot of my day online, as does my staff, just monitoring the websites. And then, of course, reading newspapers, watching the new shows, and thinking about what could be something big that we could get our hands around it, to make fun of.
MS: You recently spoofed Kim Kardashian and Kanye West in "Monster Marriage." What is it that you think makes them perfect fodder for Mad readers?
JF: They're buffoons. They're very easy to make fun of. They're so out there, on the fringe, and what they do, makes it very easy for us to after them. Sometimes, there's a popular celebrity who lives too clean a life, they're no good for us. Because there is nothing for us that we can latch on, to poke fun at, but I have a line in the show, "Making fun of Kim Kardashian is like shooting whales in a barrel." It's just a gift that keeps on giving.
MS: Because you have all these creative minds working together on the humor and gags, tell me about the creative process that goes on behind-the-scenes.
JF: Lot of back-stabbing! Lot of very petty individuals! I would love to fire them all tomorrow if I could! [Laughs] Actually, every morning starts out the same way, with me and my editorial staff, sometimes even part of the art department, sitting in my office, trying to come up with something for our blog, which we do fresh content there every morning. How fast we get that out there, again that's us sitting there, thinking about what happened, what's breaking right now that we can do something on. We work hard on that. Once that's done, we'll focus on something in the magazine, on projects we're working on.
It's very competitive. As you might suspect, everybody wants to be the funniest guy in the room. We very supportive, it's very collaborative. Someone will say something, someone else will build something on that. Mad is one of the few places where saying something stupid is prize thing. If you grow up, you have to leave here because sometimes you need a 12-year-old mind to come up with this stuff. We work hard to make it original, fresh, and hopefully people will enjoy it when they go to the blog or magazine.
MS: Do you have a favorite parody of a movie or celebrity?
JF: We've done so many over the years, I mentioned before, I think this one we just did on Orange Is The New Black, which we call Orange is the New Bleech ... Surprise, surprise for Mad! It was written by Desmond Devlin. It's a fun spoof we're having a lot of fun with! Like I said, the characters are so rich, it gave Tom Richmond a lot to work with. I'm very excited for that. We ran it longer than we normally would. Our parodies are usually like 5 pages. This one is 8 because it's so good.
MS: What is it about Spy vs. Spy and Alfred E. Neuman that you think has made them such a mainstay?
JF: Good question! Well Spy vs. Spy basically started as a satire to the Cold War. Antonio Prohías was a Cuban cartoonist who literally fled for his life, when Castro put a death warrant on him because he didn't like the cartoons he was drawing. He came to the Mad offices with these two little characters.
You can read in Spy anything you want. It could be a metaphor for the Cold War. It could be a metaphor on marriage. [Laughs] Constant battle and no one ever really wins! From a purely aesthetic point-of-view Prohías drew beautifully elegant, surrealistic drawings.
And now Peter Kuper, who now draws it after Prohías passed away, has really made it his own. He introduced color, whereas Prohías used black and white. Obviously, he's riffing more on some of the more current things. Now the spies will do a contraption with a cellphone. There were no cell phones when Prohías was doing them. It's fun to look at, it's also pantomime. It can attract readers of any age. And also, it crosses broders. There's no words, there's no American flavor to it; just pure visual humor that people respond well to.
As for why Alfred is popular, that's a good question! It can't be his good lucks that's for sure! There's something about that face! My favorite story I love to tell — years ago, someone in Europe juts cut out the face, pasted it on an envelope, put postage on it, and throw it in the mail. It was sent to our offices. It's a face that instantly recognizable. It's an odd face when you look at it. We're not sure why he works but he does work. He keeps showing up on the magazine covers.
MS: What would you like to explore in upcoming issues?
JF: Right now we're working on our big issue, the 20 Dumbest Things For The 2014. That's always a lot of fun because it gives us a chance to look back, pick out stories we may have missed because we're on a tight deadline or something, and really give them their just do. With the Mad 20, we try to do something different than regular Mad. We do what we call, "Big Impact Pieces." Every one of the 20 is a big single image; which is rare a exception. It captures the dumbness in the image. Sometimes, it's tough to come up with an idea. Other times, it's a take on movie and television posters, and books. They're difficult to do, but in the end, there's always something we get excited about; so that's always something I like doing.
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Don't miss out on the laughs, Mad Magazine #530 will hit newsstands on October 14.
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