Tom Richmond

Q: What’s next for you if MAD is really done publishing new stuff?

A: I’ve had a lot of people contact me the last few days and ask me this question or some variation of it. I’ll let this serve as a catch all answer.

First off, things won’t change much for me until at the earliest this fall. I just finished my assignment(s) for MAD#9 late last month. That issue comes out in August, and I have already been assigned at least one parody for #10, possibly along with another piece as well. That work will be due in late August/early September. After that, with respect to MAD, who knows? There are rumors (NOTE: unconfirmed by anyone official) that there might be an annual year-end issue with original content. If that happens, I’m pretty sure there will be a movie/TV parody or two in it, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be asked to do some of that work. A year end annual would need to be in production in September/October, so it might be business as usual for me through early November. By then I think future plans for MAD will have clarified.

Without question, things will be very different for me if indeed I no longer have an average of six pages of movie/TV parodies to do every eight weeks. MAD has been a significant part of my life, both personal and working, for almost 20 years. That said, while MAD has certainly been my most high profile and most time consuming of clients, they have never been my ONLY client. Right now I have five different jobs on the drawing board that have nothing to do with MAD. I’ll continue to freelance as I always have done. I will probably step up my efforts to seek new work and clients, something I haven’t done for a long time now because I have not had the physical time to take on much more work than I do. A typical MAD parody would absorb about two to three weeks of my time every two months. If I am no longer doing those jobs, I suddenly have two to three weeks to do other work. That’s a lot of time to do a lot of art.

Beyond that I’ll maybe have some time to do some personal projects, take on more private commissions, do some more workshops, etc. I’ve got some book ideas, possible comics stories, etc. If MAD really does stop doing any new movie or TV parodies, I may just have to write and draw my own and make them a webcomic of sorts. That genre should not die.

Thanks to all the people who have showed so much concern. As many people have said, when one door closes another opens, so we’ll see where things leads. And again, the MAD door isn’t closed all the way quite yet.