The Way of the Editor:
It’s a MAD, MAD WorldWhat studying MAD Magazine International taught this editor about the world.
Current users got something of a dubious treat this week—an influx of international of MAD Magazine listings, complete with pictures (check Atomic Avenue) and even localized cover pricing (not complete, but very thorough!) on many of the issues. In the last two years, correction submissions have been really pushing the envelope on what gets added to the program. Thanks for these particular MAD submissions have to go out to submitter Barry john Shepherd, who not only crossed the 100,000 correction submission line last month, but is still going strong with his exceptional finds.
It was definitely an unexpected surprise for me to see just how aspects of MAD, and by proxy American culture, was parodied, paralleled, translated, or revised for consumption in other cultures. Two years ago I would never have expected to find myself indexing MAD Magazine across the globe. But because of its parodic nature, MAD is—of all the international titles that have come my way the last couple years—perhaps the most interesting lens to look through at our global neighbors in translation. It’s the same variation on the old theme, but in different languages, different cultures. It makes me wonder how the mechanisms of each joke works in translation. Do the Germans understand a MAD joke in the same way we do? Or maybe MAD being MAD, it plays such a low-brow level of humor that transcends cultural and linguistic barriers.?
The academic in me also couldn’t help but be amused, for instance, by the determined stamping of national identity on this exported copy of Icelandic MAD, or rather, MAD Á Íslensku!
The Danish version of MAD even went as far as to change the name of its first series to GAS, which later reverted back to MAD in the middle of its run, but it makes me wonder just what exactly “GAS” meant to the dutch, and if they know what it means to us. (Later issues were published as Dansk MAD.)
An unexpected lesson on foreign economic fluctuations came up when I noticed sudden cover price changes in copies of MAD in certain countries. MAD (Magendra), the Argentine edition of MAD, really comes to mind. Compare:
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Issue number one came in at $250 Argentine Pesos, but by the end of the series, its cover price was at $17,000! In the course of its sixty issue run, the cover price changed no less than thirty times, sometimes from consecutive issue to issue for months at a time. How odd to be examining the rate of inflation and currency rate fluctuations in foreign countries through the prices of translated MAD magazines! I felt a bit like I was peeking into the past through a time capsule, squinting at the vintage copies of Argentine MADs. This level of fluctuation is almost unimaginable by our standards, and certainly makes me feel grateful for a stable economy.
Looking at the collection as a whole, it’s startling to consider how the prices represent a reflection of the socio-economic instability of the region at the time. Coming out of such an environment, it’s also challenging to try to judge the value of one of these issues today. Would they be valuable artifacts reflecting the attitudes of a chaotic time, full of historical value, or trash that people bought and threw away without a second thought? The value of any single comic collectible is certainly never intrinsic: the value it always depends on the social and cultural milieu the book comes out of, not the inherent worth of the paper. And it was definitely a challenge to get authoritative pricing information on any of the issues, although the Argentine MAD was perhaps the most extreme example of the difficulties in translating value through the twin filters of culture and historical currency exchange rates.
But overall, I’m proud of the direction ComicBase has taken. (How they grow so fast!) Our hardworking submitters have really challenged us to make many positive changes to expand the program to be as all-inclusive of English language, and now many international titles as well. We’re always trying our best to be as complete and comprehensive of a resource as humanly possible, and with ComicBase 12 especially, we’ve been adding new features to the Beta release almost every month—For instance, did you know that ComicBase now recognizes fifty or so foreign definite and indefinite articles and also includes the choice to identify the country of origin for a comic?
If you haven’t been following the reports on latest feature additions to ComicBase 12, you can check out the list of the latest developer additions on our Windows update page, including the impending “Atlas” release. These Beta updates are pre-official release versions of ComicBase (currently being tested by our helpful user base before they are made public to all users) where all of our most cutting edge, advanced program features are first made available.
For the curious, a list of the current MAD titles in ComicBase in no particular order:
MAD Á Íslensku — Icelandic MAD Magazine.
MAD (Aksoy) — Turkish MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Classics Netherlands) — Dutch MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Horwitz) — Australian MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Gotham) — Indian MAD Magazine publication.
MAD (Magendra) - Argentine MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Modan) — Israeli MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Rock Communications) — Taiwanese MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Thorpe and Porter) — British MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Williams Förlag) — Swedish MAD Magazine publication.
MAD (Vecchi) — First Brazilian MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Record) — Second Brazilian MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Mythos) — Third Brazilian MAD Magazine series.
GAS — First Danish MAD Magazine series.
Dansk MAD (Semic) — Second Danish MAD Magazine series.
Dansk MAD (Egmont Serieforlaget) — Third Danish MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Francélia) — First French MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Grafika) — Second French MAD Magazine series.
MAD (BSV) — First German MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Dino) —Second German MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Miniaio)(1st Series) — First Greek MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Miniaio)(2nd Series) — Second Greek MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Williams Inteuropa) — First Italian MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Elfo) — Second Italian MAD Magazine series.
MAD (B.S.D.) — Third Italian MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Lisa) — First Mexican MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Grafo) — Second Mexican MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Enigma) - Third Mexican MAD Magazine series.
MAD (Mina) — Fourth Mexican MAD Magazine series.
Additional information on international MAD Magazines can be found at:
as well as the MAD International Cover Sites page at collectmad.com.
Shiaw-Ling Lai is the Editor of ComicBase and a notorious converser of pie. She’d like to eat much more of it than is readily available, and unabashedly reminds everyone in the office of this on a regular basis. French Apple Cream Cheese pie currently tops her list of favorites, but she’s also been known to indulge in a strawberry rhubarb or chocolate silk now and then.
Feedback, pie, or corrections can be sent to her at: