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 looking for another job if they don't watch out.

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

See also Clue from Ed., the comic book counterpart, Footnote Fever, which covers similarly joking "annotations" in footnote form, and Alt Text, which uses mouseover text for a similar purpose.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• In one of the Looney Tunes style parodies published under the ElfQuest 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.
  • For a while, there was an editorial decision to get rid of these, as they were considered a distraction for readers. This was somewhat quickly overturned when the crossovers got more and more complex around Secret Invasion.
• Used frequently in The Beano, The Dandy, and other similar British Comics, with the Ed often making comments on how bad a pun is.
• 2000 AD has them referring to previous progs, referring to them as Tharg Notes.
• Spoofed every which way in the Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny Special Crossover. One page has a Note from Ed that has four separate sub-footnotes, the last of which has him begging "send help". When a Note pops up on the next page, "Ed" decides he's had enough and leaves. Later in the story, the narration tries to invoke a Note, only for "Ed" to refuse and ultimately quit (apparently by punching out the narrator, as evidenced by the Note simply reading "POW!" followed by one reading "SLAM!").
• Became a semi-regular feature in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) when the series became more serialized and continuity-heavy. Later issues liked to toy around with the idea, such as having "Ed" be confused and disoriented by trying to cite a non-canon issue, or having him loudly complain about needing to pop up repeatedly during a Continuity Porn sequence.
• Sonic the Comic has notes from host character Megadroid - the Decap Attack strips in particular feature a Running Gag that Megadroid keeps using them to comment on the fact that he doesn't find the strip funny, but is forced to print them because the readers do.
  • The second Decap Attack storyline, "Who Killed Chuck?" opens with Megadroid directly appearing on panel to complain that he can't be held responsible for it returning.

Fan Works

• This is something of a Running Gag in the Twice Upon an Age series of Dragon Age: Inquisition stories. The basic conceit is that Varric, who in the Dragon Age games is a popular author, is serving as the editor for the fanfic author. The stories are thus peppered with notes from the editor at the beginning and/or end of chapters, and anywhere in between, where he explains things to the reader, offers his opinions, and occasionally quarrels with the author's choice of words. The author's own notes sometimes give the impression that she's a Beleaguered Assistant, making it clear that The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You (or at least, it won't protect her).

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, which 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). On occasion, the unnamed editor will also make notes on Johnny's notes, and once even corrects Johnny's correction to one of Zampano's own translations.
• 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!
• The Mysterious Island indulges in some memorable Canon Welding with two other Jules Verne books, but the welding creates a messy chronological tangle that can't be resolved unless the reader indulges in massive amounts of retconning. Verne's creative solution was to call attention to this tangle in a couple of footnotes supposedly added by the publisher, each of which simply refers the reader to the other footnote!
• The Discworld spin-offs Nanny Ogg's Cookbook and The Discworld Almanack both include lengthy notes from Mr Goatberger the publisher questioning elements of the work.
• In The Moon Pool there are notes indicating that protagonist Dr. Goodwin's detailed and concise explanations about how the advanced technology in the novel works, have been edited out so as to not give the scientists of the Central European Powers any ideas. This also saves the author the trouble of having to come up with some reasonable sounding technobabble.

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?
  • That's enough <examples>.
  • 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 2020 a non-spoof article alleged various awful behaviour by the Bad Boss of a PR firm, including some quite disgusting details of sexually explicit messages he sent to staff, which prompted the following note mid-article:
    (Urgh. Do we have to have all this detail? - Ed. Yes, to demonstrate it is not one-off banter which could be misconstrued, but a consistent pattern - Legal Dept.)
• 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.
  • Inverted in the 2000 election column, where he left notes to the editor. The joke was supposed to be that he wrote his "election result analysis" article the night before without actually knowing the results due to watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer instead of the news, and so left blanks and asked his editor to fill in the results later, although it became very ironic since the election took months to resolve and nobody knew the results on election night.
• When PC Gamer magazine changed to using (psg), they received a raftload of letters demanding to know what had become of Ed.
• Official Nintendo Magazine used this like normal, but also played it for laughs in a two-page feature on Tonic Trouble from the December 1997 issue. The player character and protagonist of that game is named Ed, resulting in the magazine's Ed appearing when the feature was referring to the game's character.
  There's no question, however, that Tonic Trouble's name is a bit odd. It's explained at least partly, however, by the revelation that Ed (Yes? - Ed), the character you play, is responsible for creating an environmental catastrophe by dropping a canister of toxic chemicals from Earth Orbit. The canister has fallen into the hands of Grogh the Hellish, who is using its contents to genetically alter Earth's inhabitants. Ed (Hello? - Ed) has resolved to make amends by rescuing the can[...]
• NGamer 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 Hill's 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.
  • After one confused reader wrote in asking who "Ed" was, the editors responded that it is indeed tough to have a talking horse for an editor.
• (Ultra) Game Players did this, typically when another editor (typically Frank, Chris, or Roger) made a joke at managing editor Bill's expense. Given the Death World environment of the office itself, it was usually assured someone was in really deep shit.
• In Sinclair User, the review of the game Mugsy began in a Funetik Aksent version of how Chicago gangsters were supposed to speak, until it was brought to a halt by a note: [Dat's enough, goil. All dis Mugsyspeak is getting on ma noives. Da Ed.]
• Anthony Daniels did this in the columns he wrote for Star Wars Insider magazine in the mid-90s.
• Top Secret did this occasionally. The most major example comes from issue 28, where the editor-in-chief interrupts a review halfway through, supposedly to remove the reviewer's unrelated ramblings, and instead writes the second half by himself.

Webcomics

• Debugging Destiny uses one, after the artist finally ran out of narratively appropriate ways to avoid boring scenes of characters walking from one spot to another. Appears in 49-15.

Web Video

• The Whiskey Vault: Fancy Dan, the show's editor, occasionally inserts snarky comments that pop up on screen, usually to poke fun at Rex or lampshade something silly that's happening in the video.

Websites

• Often humorously inserted into Chet's Old Man Murray articles by Erik, and more 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
  • 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." ** Other 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.
• Television Without Pity occasionally has Notes from Ed in the recaps, although they are signed with the editor's handle, not "Ed."

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