MAD Magazine, a quintessentially American institution, will soon cease publication after 67 years. It was born about the same time I was, so I hope its demise isn't a harbinger of fate. Still, this is a very sad turn of events for a baby-boomer such as myself.
MAD began life as a humor comic book at Educational Comics (EC) but when the Comics Code of 1954 was adopted, it changed its format to that of a magazine, which was then exempt from the code. It was the brainchild of Harvey Kurtzman, who edited the grimly realistic EC war comics, and was created only because Kurtzman wanted more income. Luckily for him, he had great ability as an editor of a humor magazine and was ably abetted by many of the EC artists such as the infamous Jack Davis, who was tired of drawing rotting corpses for the EC horror comics and wanted a change of pace.
MAD was something that had never been seen before and it took off like a rocket. Immensely popular through the 50's and 60's, it reached its peak of circulation in 1971 but then began to slowly decline. The advent of the internet was a slow poison, since now readers could get the same kind of content for free. it didn't help matters that the original owner and publisher, William M. Gaines, died in 1992 and the original contributors were either dead or fast dying off by the 21st century.
MAD has limped along for the past twenty years, but the new editors, artists, and writers simply weren't up to the task in the Internet Age, and so it has finally reached the end. More details concerning MAD Magazine and its demise may be found here.