Comedy Before Country: Mad Magazine on Politics

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MAD MAGAZINE, WHICH has been at the forefront of biting, satirical humor since its inception in 1952, tackles the political season with its election issue and a new pop-up book that features some of the publication's best work.

Perhaps no magazine is better suited to take on what has been a divisive campaign, with Barack Obama and John McCain trading barbs at every opportunity. It's enough to make anybody say, "What, me worry?"

John Ficarra has been an editor at Mad since 1984, and in the election issue he — along with the usual gang of idiots — tackles the war on terror, TV punditry on shows like "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," John McCain's historical career and Sarah Palin, as well as looking at what high school elections would be like if they were treated like the presidential ones.

Ficarra also headed up a pop-up book, "Mad About Politics" and a poster book, "The Mad Magazine Poster Book: 15 Stupidly Big Prints!"

Express spoke to Ficarra, who gave some snappy answers to stupid questions.

» EXPRESS: How do you ensure that the readers — who are typically younger — will understand the political issues that you're dealing with?
» FICARRA: Your question is faulty on several levels. First, age has nothing to do with understanding political issues. I don't care how old you are, most times in this campaign you couldn't possibly understand why the candidates were talking about some of the things they were talking about! Secondly, Mad's readership has been climbing in recent years. The average age of a Mad reader is 24. When you contrast [that number] with the IQ of the average Mad contributor — 79-93, Al Jaffee throws off the curve a bit — the whole thing becomes much clearer. Or are you "too young" to understand this?

» EXPRESS: How has Mad's satirical approach to this election differed from elections of the past?
» FICARRA: Good question! Satirizing this election has been much different than elections we've covered in the past. For example, in the '68 election, we did a ton of Nixon and Humphrey jokes. Jokes about Nixon and Humphrey would seem somewhat inappropriate this year.

» EXPRESS: Do you make sure that the coverage of the candidates is balanced?
» FICARRA: Like Fox News, we at Mad like to say our political coverage is "fair and balanced." The only difference is, we really mean it! The staff and freelancers run the gamut in terms of political leanings. Like any good purveyors of satire, we go where the joke is. Who is being skewered is much less important to us than "is the comment fair and funny?" And if it's funny enough, then our "fair' standard goes out the window pretty quickly. We don't create situations; we react to stupid things politicians say and do. We're never short of material.

» EXPRESS: Are there any limitations to what Mad can and cannot discuss politically?
» FICARRA: Yes.

» EXPRESS: How is the satire market different since you started?
» FICARRA: Overall, I think shows like "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" have raised the profile of smart, political humor. Mad has always done smart, political humor but there is no question that we are doing more than ever before because there is a real demand for it. I think there has been a shift in the way society views politics. It's viewed much more as fleeting entertainment than serious stuff that has real consequences. Good for "The Daily Show" and Mad, probably bad for the country.

This year we were much more aggressive in getting Mad material out there as fast as possible because all of our society now has an ASAP quality to it. We had very good luck getting things on The Huffington Post and Boing Boing that got wide attention around the Web. Hopefully, we'll being doing lots more on the Web in the upcoming months.

» EXPRESS: How did the "Mad About Politics" pop-up book come about?
» FICARRA: The publisher — foolishly — approached us. Within a nano-second, I knew we had to do our Bill Clinton official portrait with his open fly as a pull-tab. I sat down with Mad art director Sam Viviano and the rest of the staff and just brainstormed what were our favorite pieces and which ones we thought would work best in an interactive format. The book has lots of great material — "Bush's TV Campaign If He Was Running Against Jesus," our "Star Wars" poster, and Clinton's "Good Night Room" are just a few that come to mind that really showcase Mad at its best.

» EXPRESS: What about the poster book? Any other non-Mad projects coming up from you?
» FICARRA: We just published the "Mad Magazine Poster Book," which features some classic Mad art pieces in a size suitable for framing. I wrote text for each of the pieces to give them some context. Like the pop-up book, we've never done an oversized book like this, so it was a great deal of fun. Also, we just published a special project with Barnes & Noble called "Mad About the Movies: Special Director's Cut" — a giant collection of some of our greatest movie satires. It's available only at B&N. Next year, we have some great projects planned including ones on Al Jaffee, Spy vs. Spy and Planet Tad.

And to plug one more thing — we're going to be auctioning off some classic Mad covers in November. Go to ha.com/mad to see them all and begin bidding.

If you have any other questions for me, I'm afraid you'll have to speak to my attorney.

Written by Express contributor Scott A. Rosenberg
Images courtesy Mad Magazine