MAD Magazine - now featuring Paul Krugman and Robert Reich!

With issue 505 (October 2010), MAD Magazine has increased its publication frequency to six times a year after languishing in a once-every-three-months schedule since the beginning of 2009. This means that the can once again be timely and topical with their satires and parodies, at least to the extent that a magazine publication schedule allows.

In addition to the change in publication frequency, MAD seems to be targeting an older demographic. Not entirely, of course: "Fun Facts About Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan" shares page nine with "Possible Theories to Explain Justin Bieber's Ever-Present Hand Gesture" and Episode 1 of "Gaga the Horrible". But we also see "Tea-Bagger Proof that Obama is a Terrorist/Socialist" - one Tea-Bagger holding a sign mashing-up Obama with Che Guevara says "He improved the school lunch program because well-fed kids concentrate better and are easier to indoctrinate into his socialist agenda" - on pages 14 and 15, and "The Wizard of O" - in which Dorothy is whisked from her family's foreclosed farm to Punditland, where she is greeted by - among many others - Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, Fareed Zakaria, Sanjay Gupta (who attends to her injuries), James Carville, and Thomas Friedman, and is thwarted in her efforts to find the worshipful Wizard of O by the Witless Witch of the North - starting on page 47.

One of the great features of MAD Magazine when I was just five or six was the amount of content I didn't understand, all the references to politics and literature that were beyond my experience and encouraged me to learn more on my own. Let's hope that some of today's kids pick up the latest MAD Magazine and become curious about some of the things they find within! And you should pick up a copy, too!