MADness #157: Squid Game!

Ho Ho Ho here we go with another (and closing in on the last) of the work I have done for MAD Magazine. We are rapidly closing in on Present day stuff! When I started doing this look back it seemed likely I had done my last piece for the magazine. MAD had become almost entirely reprint material, and other than the occasional cover it certainly looked like my run at MAD had come to an end.

This particular piece changed that, at least for now. This wasn’t for a special political issue, or a tribute piece to a recently passed UGOI, or for any unique circumstance. This was a bonafide parody of a recent TV show in a regular old issue, which also featured 11 additional pages of new content. No promise were being made but there were strong indications MAD had been given a limited budget for new stuff. How long will it last? No one knows. This piece was written by Desmond Devlin and appeared in MAD #43 June 2025.

I had never seen this show so I had to watch the two seasons that had been released. The script called for a lot of busy panels with many people. That’s time consuming. Des knows that and maybe felt bad for me, so he wrote the gag he did for the fist panel of page 3, which I appreciated:

I’ve had a piece in every issue since, so I am now on a 5 issue run with new stuff! Toon in next week to see what we had cooking for #44!