Note From Ed

In some more informal media works [Name them - Ed.], the Editor may make humorous in-article comments, usually noting that the author is completely crazy in his or her views, pointing out where the article referred is located in the many back issues, or stating that the writer will soon be getting their P45 if they are a UK resident.

Of course, their interference is only sometimes welcome. [You're fired - Ed]

See also Clue From Ed, the comic book counterpart, and Footnote Fever, which covers similarly joking "annotations" in footnote form.

Examples of Note From Ed include:

Comic Books

• In one of the Looney Tunes style parodies published under the Elf Quest New Blood line, one of the characters remarks that "Something funny is going on". Note from the editor added to the panel "Terry and Bill - something funny better start real soon! - Richard"
• Various Marvel Comics like doing these as footnotes (since inserting them into the text in a comic is difficult), and often use notes from the editor to let the reader know when Translation Convention is in effect, or explain cryptic references to previous storylines with an issue reference^[1].
• Used frequently in The Beano, The Dandy and other similiar British Comics. With the Ed often making comments on how bad a pun is.

Literature

• In America: The Book, in one of Samantha Bee's "Pardon me, would you mind if I told you how we do it in Canada?" segments, when trying to describe Canadian parliamentary procedures it's cut off mid-paragraph with "This paragraph cut due to extreme boringness. - Ed"
  • The "Teacher's Edition" is full of critical red notes in the margins.
• The Princess Bride is full of notes from William Goldman about all the stuff he cut out from S. Morgenstern's original book, that he's abridging. Sometimes it takes almost as long to explain what he was cutting and why as it would have been to leave the cut stuff alone.
  • The film changes this to a story being told by a boy's grandfather, so he sometimes glosses over things he thinks will bore the kid.
• John Mortimer, in his Rumpole of the Bailey short stories and novels, was very enthusiastic about footnoting allusions within a story to other other stories in the Rumpole Canon, to the point of providing exact citations to stories being alluded to. [Possibly a "Take That" to Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (internal evidence suggests that the Rumpole stories are, in part, an Homage to the Holmes stories), whose attitude towards consistency between stories was extremely casual, at best.]
• House of Leaves, where Johnny Truant or the unnamed later editor feel the need to comment on something Zampano has written (or in the former's case just descend into an insane rant).
• I Am America (And So Can You!) has a few examples, such as: "NOTE FROM EDITOR: DO NOT SLEEP WITH A 9MM UNDER YOUR PILLOW AND FIRE AT SHADOWS UPON WAKING".
  • DO IT!

Print Media

• White Dwarf
  • One of the editors, Guy Haley, in one of his first issues, actually consoled himself on a run of bad luck with editor's notes, leading to the main text concluding: "Great. Now I'm going insane."
• Doctor Who Magazine
• Private Eye
  • What that?
  • Who he?
  • Especially in the spoof columns, where it's been known for, say, Glenda Slagg to be fired, re-hired and fired again over the course of a single column.
• In an issue of Squee where he's being chased by his grandpa who wants to eat him, the grandpa shouts "The next time I see you you're going to be a lot smaller and coming out the other end!" and a note from Jhonen Vasquez says "Ok, even I admit how disgusting this is."
  • These pop up all over the place in Vasquez's comics, to the point where they're almost a running gag, though the notes aren't from an editor but explicitly from Jhonen himself.
• American humor columnist Dave Barry would occasionally include comments from his editor in his column, usually self-deprecating or a funny comment on the issue.
• When PC Gamer magazine changed to using (psg) they received a raftload of letters demanding to know what had become of Ed.
• NGamer. They once got a letter complaining about how Ed is never featured in the team page.
  • In fact, this seems to be a particular trope of magazines published by Future.
• Harry Hills TV Burp Book is full of these, often whole conversations between Hill and his publisher.
• It was an event when a review in Amiga Power didn't have one.
• The wacky computer games magazine Zero used these even more than Amiga Power.
• Your Sinclair went nuts with this, particular during T'Zer's spell. Also went recursive, with Ed's contributions occasionally being heckled by Ed's Ed.

Websites

• Often humorously inserted into Chet's Old Man Murray articles by Erik, and rarely vice-versa.
• There was a running joke about John Cheese, editor of Juvenile Comedy, doing this in Shamus Young's articles, usually to humorous effect.
• The Agony Booth's editor, Albert, occasionally adds research notes to the site's reviews recaps.
• Cracked.com articles sometimes include editor's notes for further jokes. For example: "If there’s two things Cracked is all about, it’s fucked up animals and dongs. And since they won’t let me write "The 7 Most Fucked Up Animal Dongs," (Editor's Note: Only because it's been written already) I had to settle for focusing on just the animal stuff."
  • A recurring joke is the Photoshop Department commenting on the article's photos. For example, below a picture of dogs leaping from a bridge to their deaths was a caption that said: "'Please don't make me do something like this again.'-Photoshop Department."
  • Another times the note says that it was awesome making the photo.
• These pop up on Comics Alliance from time to time, mostly Laura Hudson defending herself against Chris Sims' more bizarre accusations.
• The source code for several articles in TV Tropes -- which All The Tropes inherited -- contains comments from one of their administrators about what edits are acceptable. For example, many articles had their pictures chosen through voting on proposals, and had a note in the source not to change them.
  • Admins for All The Tropes have made their own annotations to various pages over the years.

1. ↑ Often advertising trades these stories can be found in -Ed