Sunday Mailbag- International MADmen?

Q: There are foreign editions of MAD, for instance in Germany. They often translate articles of MAD, but there are also contributions from local artists. Do you have any contact to these foreign artists? Is there something like a meeting of international MAD artist once and a while?

A: There are still a number of foreign editions of MAD being published, although not as many as there once was. It’s my understanding that they license the MAD brand and a certain amount of the US edition’s material and then produce their own content using local creators and (presumably) more local topics to make fun of. Here’s a website with info on the foreign editions of MAD, if anyone is interested.

As for your question regarding a meeting of international MAD minds (and being that we are all “Idiots”, that would be a short meeting), I’ve never heard of one. That would be a really fun thing, but I can’t imaging it happening. The closest thing to it I’ve ever participated in was last October at the Australian Cartoonists Association‘s Stanley Awards in Coffs Harbour. During the weekend I was on a panel with the editor of the Australian MAD Dave Williams, and artist Anton Emdin, who does work for both the Aussie and US editions of MAD. We talked about the process of doing MAD parodies and the differences between how we do them in the US and how they do them down under…there are not many differences. Dave kindly mailed me a stack of Australian MADs shortly there after. They are a lot of fun to look through, but since I don’t speak Australian I can’t understand a word in them (ba dum bum).

Me, Anton Emdin and Dave Williams

Thanks to Dominik Zellinger for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!