Al Jaffee obit

Al Jaffee, Inventive Cartoonist at Mad Magazine, Dies at 102

For 55 years he created the fold-in (as opposed to, say, Playboy’s fold-out), giving readers a satirical double-take on whatever was going on in the news. 

He was not on the list.

For generations of readers of MAD Magazine, Al Jaffee’s “Fold In” gags, along with his other satirical contributions like “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,” were a reliable source of subversive humor. Jaffee, who remained active well into his late 90s, was also a vital linklink -2.2% to the earliest days of the American comic book business.

Jaffee died on Monday — just a month after celebrating his 102nd birthday, triggering an outpouring of affection for the beloved humorist from creators and fans around the world.

“Al Jaffee had a twinkle in his eye and a voice made for NPR,” said Columbia University graphic novel librarian Karen Green, a close personal friend of Jaffee who acquired his archives for the university's Rare Book & Manuscript Library. “Al first entered my life in 1966, via my brother’s MAD magazines and then the Ballantine MAD paperbacks that I adored. It never occurred to me that I would ever actually know Al Jaffee, but then one fall evening in 2009 I found myself sitting across a table from him, at a dinner preceding a talk he was giving here at Columbia.

“I was overawed, but he put me completely at ease, and soon we were chatting away like old friends,” Green continued. “What stays with me is that he was a warm and dear friend, and simply one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. I hope he and his beloved Joyce are laughing together somewhere.”

The Savannah, Georgia-born Jaffee graduated from New York’s High School of Music and Art in the 1930s, which was also the alma mater of his future MAD colleagues Harvey Kurtzman, Al Feldstein, John Severin and Jaffee’s close friend Will Elder.

“Al and Will Elder were used to being the funniest guys in the school, but then they saw a cartoon posted on a bulletin board by an underclassman named Harvey Kurtzman and realized they had competition,” said Denis Kitchen, who represents the estate of MAD creator Kurtzman. “They went on to become great friends, and Al contributed to many of Harvey’s publications, including Humbug, Help and briefly, Playboy’s ‘Little Annie Fannie.’ 

Jaffee broke into comics during the “Golden Age” of the 1940s, discovering his talent as a gag writer and humorist to accompany his artistic skills. He joined MAD’s “usual gang of idiots” in 1955 after the publication switched from comics to magazine format, and quickly became one of the magazine’s most recognizable contributors.

“I was very fortunate to have been Al’s editor at MAD Magazine before he retired at age 98!” said Bill Morrison, longtime cartoonist for The Simpsons and Futurama who served as editor-in-chief of MAD in the late 2010s. “I’ll always be grateful to him for waiting and not retiring earlier like a normal person. But to say I was his editor…well it was more like we were pen pals. He would mail me a Fold-In for the latest issue of MAD, and I would thank him, tell him it was great, and ask for another. It was the easiest job in the world. There will never be another cartoonist like the great Al Jaffee.”

In addition to his well-known work at MAD, Jaffee also pursued personal projects related to his Jewish heritage. “Al had a thriving but much less well-known career drawing ‘Der Shpy’ for the Moshiach Times,” said Green. “And what’s probably least-known of all is that the drawings he made for his biography constituted the only records of pre-war Zarasai, Lithuania. The Zarasai Museum hung reproductions of those drawings next to photos of what the neighborhoods look like today, and it was the first time many residents had seen the visual history of their town.”

“Al Jaffee was every cartoonist's role model,” said artist Drew Friedman, who captured Jaffee’s likeness as part of a series of portraits of classic cartoonists. “Al wrote what was essentially the guidebook for a snarky and sarcastic, late 20th century generation with ‘Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,’ which was ironic since he was one of the kindest and sweetest gentlemen you'd ever want to meet.”

“In person, Al generally gave the impression of being a cross between a reform Rabbi and a Freudian psychiatrist, goatee and all,” said writer, editor and comics historian Danny Fingeroth. “So when he said something funny in his stentorian baritone, it would multiply the humorous effect a hundredfold. “

Fingeroth recalls interviewing Jaffee in 2009 as part of the Comics and the Jewish-American Dream series at the YIVOVO Institute in NYC. “I had prepared a list of questions that I thought were reasonably intelligent. However there was one particular question that came out sounding idiotic and I deservedly got a hilarious wisecrack response to it from Al. That gave me the opportunity to say, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I have just gotten a snappy answer to a very stupid question!’ I have never been so happy to be publicly embarrassed.”