Mad Magazine put out their “20 Dumbest People, Events & Things of 2007.” As one would expect it’s full of moments that make you laugh, shake your head and feel nauseous all at once.

In conjunction with the magazine’s appearance on newsstands, I had the opportunity to speak with Mad Magazine Editor John Ficarra. Below here is the transcript.

The Comic Book Guy: First off I wanted to start off by getting some information about you, I don’t know a lot about you to be honest. So how did you get started with Mad.

John Ficarra: I started as a freelance writer and after about 3 years I came on staff as an associate editor. Then 4 years later Al Feldstien retired and Nick Meglin and I became co-editors. Then Nick retired, I guess about 2 or 3 years ago and I took over sole editorship.

CBG: So what’s a standard week there?

JF: Well it varies. I mean were always on deadline, obviously. We put out a magazine every 30 days and then we have MAD Kids, as well which comes out quarterly. And MAD classics which also comes out quarterly and then we have the book projects. This last year we just did the War on Bush. We did the big Don Martin project. And then we have other things going on as well, so … One of the things I really like about my job is that I get to wear a lot of different hats and no two days are alike.

CBG: That’s pretty cool. I mean it always keeps you on your toes.

JF: Yeah.

CBG: Is there anything you guys consider off limits as far as something to poke fun at or anything?

JF: Um, newspapers we never make fun of newspapers. (Both laughing) And reporters we love reporters. We think some things are above reproach in this society.

CBG: Nice try.

JF: I do what I can you know (both laugh).

It’s pretty much fair game you know. I mean we try never to do the victim humor. There are enough big guys out there who do stupid things that we don’t have to. So y’know, if there’s a tragedy or something we’re not gonna … We didn’t do 9/11 jokes for example.

CBG: For spe…

JF: Although the Bush Administration can be considered a disaster but we have done those jokes. So I guess we don’t always hold ourselves to that standard. (chuckles)

CBG: Well the thing is there’s a bunch of little disasters going on constantly there that you can pick on instead of the overall issue. (both laugh)

JF: It’s like a face with acne there, lots of places to pick and you never know what’s going to ooze out. (both laugh)

CBG: Painting quite the visual there by the way.(both laugh)

So I was curious about the (20 Dumbest People, Events & Things of 2007)list. What is the selection process like?

JF: Believe it or not the selecting process starts on Jan. 1st. Most days start in my office just talking about the events of the day and brainstorming, seeing what we might like to see in the pages of the magazine. And if something happened I’ll open up a file and type in a little bit about what something is about. Sometimes things have legs, sometimes they don’t.

And then around August, I guess mid-August we really start to winnow the list down. Things that we thought were big went away quick and things that we just thought ‘Oh this is nothing’ can sometimes blossom. Then we’ll send out a memo to our freelancers telling them what we’re looking at for ideas and then they’ll start hitting us with ideas. At the same time, me and my staff will be sitting here trying to come up with visual presentations for things that we deem the dumbest.

The mad 20 is a little bit different from the usual magazine because we try to do what we call ‘high-impact visual pieces.’ They’ll capture the story in one page, very quickly. You know, movie posters, take offs on books, take offs on magazines as oppossed to articles where you might have to sit there and read quite a bit to get the satire.

CBG: Yeah, and I noticed on these you went with more of a book lean, some were magazines, but there was more of a book feel. Was there a reason behind that choosing.

JF: Well, like I said, we think that they make good impact pieces. And since we’re doing 20 things, if we did 2 pages on each we’d fill the magazine with that and we don’t want to do just that. Occassionally we’ll do one. Like the ‘Sopranos’ one was basically a typical Mad article, going over all the endings the ‘Sopranos’ may have had. But we like the bigger impact pieces. The take off on the book with Micheal Vick. The ‘Home Alone’ poster take off. The Sporting News to The Snorting News for Kieth Richards, y’know where he’s snorting his father’s ashes. The movie poster, There’s Something About Larry with out beloved senator Larry Craig in the men’s room. Something like that, where people will get an instant laugh off of them. And, quite frankley, stuff that’s’ going to go around the net and plays well in the press when they want reproduce it. We’re not above showing form some attention.

CBG: Well, that’s a good thing. You brought up the net. I was curious about that. How do you guys interplay with the net knowing that that’s out there making an impact on publishing right now?

JF: Yeah, it’s a tough road because it seems like there’s a generation that doesn’t want to pay for magazines and newspapers. They’d rather go on the net and get it for free so it’s tough to always work that business model to make it successful for us. But we try to do things that will play well on the net so that when we do put it on the net it will play well. But we try to make the magazine a big enough experience so that you want to get it and hold it in your hands. I’m sure, you’re a newspaper man you feel this way too on some level, you know. There’s something about the tactile feeling of holding it in your hand, smelling the ink, smelling the paper and pouring over it. And one of the ways we do that is we really try to reward readers so there’s a lot of things hidden in the magazine, there are a lot of hidden layers.

So you might not get it on the screen it might not be that comfortable to read on the screen in all instances but when you have it in your hands you can really pour over it, go back over it and hopefully enjoy it.

CBG: Yeah, you guys tend to have little jokes within a picture besides for the main one.

JF: Yeah, and also in the margines we do, what we call marginals. Those little marginals by Sergio Argones. And like you just said, we really try to layer it in so if, in the forefront, there’s two guys talking on a city street, in the background there may be a mugging going on. There may be an aligator coming out of the manhole, something so that if you’re paying attention, we’ll reward you for that.

CBG: OK, so with the list, is there anything you guys really wanted to get in but it didn’t quite make that list?

JF: No, I don’t think this year. Sometimes we’ll really want to get something in, we just don’t have a great idea for it. And some might argue that a lot of stuff we didn’t have a great idea for. (both laughing)

But there are some things we knew we had to get in come hell or high water. Micheal Vick we had to get in, Larry Craig we had to get in. Um Brittney, Brittney Spear’s year and Paris Hilton, they were such big media stories we had to. Others, like Sanjaya, he was number 20. If something else happened it might have knocked him off in a minutes notice.
Other things were just, even though they weren’t a big news story like the Kieth Richards thing, snorting his father’s ashes. It was just such a dumb thing we were like, ‘How can we not put this on the list.” If you’re snorting your father’s ashes, you deserve to be on this list.

CBG: Well you mentioned the Sanjaya thing and that felt more of an American Idol thing in general. Bringing up Sanjaya felt more like what was specifically wrong with the season.

JF: Yeah. Well the fact that he made it into the top 10 and just kept hanging around. And the hair and the whole bit. That was pretty dumb. And I know that Howard Stern and others were getting their people to call and to keep him there but God. To watch that every week and see him coming out, it was like a weekly train wreck.

CBG: Yeah, and bringing back William Hung for that joke, by the way, was great. (both laugh)

JF: Well, you know, some old punching bags never go away. (both laugh)

CBG: Well, I’ve noticed, and I don’t know if it’s my perspective as a reader or if it’s just always been there but to me it’s kind of felt like there’s been more or a political stance over the years.

JF: That’s true. You’re absolutely, it’s true.

Part of it has been because me and a lot of my staff happen to be political junkies but I think a greater reason is because politics is now covered in the media almost like entertainment. In fact I would argue that it is covered as entertainment.

Just like they give movie grosses now, politics with all the talking heads shows, it’s celebrity politics rather than substantive politics and Mad is reflecting that.

CBG: And politicians are making about the same kind of dumb decisions that pop stars are making.

JF: I would argue worse decisions.

CBG: Well this is true but I haven’t heard of any cars winding up in the river lately.

JF: (laughs) Going back to Wilber Mills for that one.

CBG: Well, stuff jumps into my head from everywhere. It’s a fairly terrifying experience on occasion. (both laugh)

And what’s your guiding force behind your decision making process as the editor?

JF: Question authority.

CBG: Question authority?

JF: Question authority. If I had one tenet that Mad would be it would be, ‘Question authority at all times.’ I think that starts out for a lot of our younger readers Mad is maybe the first taste of that where we’re telling them, ‘Hey, every thing that you read in the …’ well I wouldn’t say read in the newspapers because everything that you read in the newspapers is true. (heh) But, ‘read in magazines or hear on television may not be true. Whether it be a politician, whether it be an advertiser, everybody has got an agenda and you’d better look out for yourself.’ And I think that really, Mad acts as an introduction to the world on that level.

I think it’s gotten younger for us to deliver that message because I think kids are more savvy and cynical these days than ever given a lot of the stuff that’s out there.

As a result of that I think advertising and politicians both are trying to get around that by saying hey, we know we’re conning you. And they’ll laugh at themselves. That’s why they’ll show up on The Daily Show, and they’ll show up on the The Tonight Show the politicians (saying), ‘Hey look I’m a fun guy, I can laugh at myself.’ Trying to poison the well about all the stupid stuff that they are doing.

CBG: And when did you start coming up with that idea as your guiding point?

JF: Oh I don’t think that’s mine. I think that’s always been one of the tennents of Mad going back to its very early days. Certainly from Feldstien on.

CBG: And do you feel that you’ve had any missteps this year?

JF: Well, I tell ya. I ate at a restaurant last night that I’m startinh to … I’m never going back too.

Oh, you mean with the magazine? (heh)

I don’t think there’s an issue that goes out that I and the staff don’t look at and go boy if only we had another couple of days we could have made this article better. I think by and large it was a pretty good year for us editorially. I’m very happy with the way a lot of the things have come out and we have a lot of things coming strong for next year also.
We’re working on the next two issues and it’s … We have a terrific one on politicians in the January issue. Like a poster, a take off on Heroes with all the candidates from the Iowa election that looks very strong. I’m looking at that now. And we’re going to try for some daring things on the cover this year to make it interesting.

So you know, if I had things to do over sure. But on a 30 day deadline, it’s sort of like a newspaper, it’s like ‘Yeah that was bad but you know we gotta feed the beast again so what can we do for tomorrow?’

CBG: Well, and another thing you just mentioned, the covers. How far in advance to you all get the work going on those?

JF: Well we just printed, this weekend, the issue that’s going to be on sale in mid-January and we’re working now on the one for mid-February. And we may be working on particular articles past that, whether it may be a movie spoof or a television spoof. Or just what we call ‘evergreens,’ stories that can run now or next year but they’ll still be relevant. But that’s pretty much the window, figure a 60- to 90-day window out.

CBG: Well that’s it for the questions I have written down so ….

JF: Well no, now I have some questions for you. (both laugh)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 7:57 pm and is filed under John Ficarra, comic books, comics, editor, funny, interview, mad magazine, satire. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.