Mad journal, America’s journal of adolescent satire, turns 70 this 12 months. The publication will come out of hiatus on Oct. 4 for an anniversary version headlined by tributes from Jordan Peele and “Weird Al” Yankovic, in addition to the “Usual Gang of Idiots” who nonetheless stick with it the journal’s many absurd traditions.

Yankovic will salute Al Jaffee, 101, who contributed his signature Fold-In puzzle to Mad’s again web page for all however one concern over a 50-year stretch (1964 to 2013). Mad’s anniversary quantity can even embrace a “special two-page Mad Fold-In by [artist] Johnny Sampson that folds in on itself!” guardian firm DC Entertainment mentioned in a information launch Tuesday.

Peele will write a tribute to Mad referencing his childhood recollections of the journal. He had included a fictional Mad journal cowl in a scene of this 12 months’s comedy-thriller Nope.

Other highlights:

• Sergio Aragonés, the artist who contributed to 491 problems with Mad (second solely to Jaffee), returns with “Another Look at Mad.”
• Dick DeBartolo, the journal’s longest-tenured contributing author, provides “a ‘MAD-gical history tour.’”
• Former editor-in-chief John “Hot Shit” Ficarra and artwork director Sam Viviano group up for “an illustrated look at the classic Mad employee cruise to Bermuda.”
• And Mad will get again into present film parodies, bringing in contributors Desmond Devlin and Tom Richmond for “The Bathroom,” a send-up of The Batman.

Image: Mad/DC Entertainment

Mad launched in August 1952 underneath editor Harvey Kurtzman and writer William Gaines of Entertaining Comics (EC). Its circulation peaked at 2.1 million in 1974, an necessary determine for {a magazine} that famously didn’t settle for promoting (relenting solely in 2001). DC Comics’ guardian firm acquired Mad within the Sixties.

In 2019, after twenty years of schedule adjustments, cutbacks, format modifications, and relocating Mad’s headquarters to Burbank, California, Mad ceased publishing authentic content material and switched to printing compilations of its best hits from the previous 67 years.

Mad’s Special Anniversary concern is $5.99 (Cheap!) and guarantees “70% new material!”