Mad #536 (John Ficarra) - Death Star 3.0 Issue - December 2015

The best article of the issue is the website parody, "The Death Star 3.0 Kickstarter Campaign" written by newcomer Al Duran with artwork by Ward Sutton.  The concept of an online funding program to aid The Empire in its plan to dominate the star system is perfectly absurd in the Mad tradition.  The first 417 billion sentients who contribute 25 credits will receive a "Death Star Construction Crew" one-size-fits-all t-shirt.  It is assumed that beings with more than two upper appendages are not eligible.  This useful fundraiser arrives just in time to retrofit the Death Star before Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens arrives at a theatre near you in IMAX 3-D.  Note that a NASA space shuttle, the starship Enterprise and George Jetson are depicted as attacking the previously-vulnerable, galactic weapon of mass destruction.  [JAM 10/11/2015]

Departments:
Random Acts of Mindless - The Fundalini Pages
Battering Ramsay - MessyChef Junior
Joke And Dagger - Spy vs. Spy
Bored of Education - The Substitute Teacher's Manual
A Complete Disaster - The Hunger Games vs. NFL Games
When Beast Meets Jest - The Previously Untold Show-Biz Secrets of Nature Documentaries
Jedi Nights And Days - The Mad 2016 Star Wars Calendar
Serge-In General - A Mad Look at Beer
Straight Out of Comp. Lit. - What If Some of the World's Greatest Writers Were Rappers [fake department]
Bleak Behind the Scenes - Mad's Make Your Own Teen Dystopia Movie
Pen And Stink - The Mad Strip Club
Rotten to the Encore - The Mad Vault
Drawing a Crowdsource - The Death Star 3.0 Kickstarter Campaign
Witness for the Copulation - Courtroom Reactions to the Hulk Hogan Sex Tape
Remodel Prisoners - Home Renovations: HGTV vs. Real Life
Our Daily Dread - The Best of the Idiotical
Symbol Minded - The Gap-Toothed Gallery: Alfred E-moji Neuman

Fold-In - Doctor and anti-vax Parents