Al Jaffee
Encyclopedia
Abraham Jaffee known as Al Jaffee, is an American
cartoonist
. He is notable for his work in the satirical
magazine
Mad
, including his trademark feature, the Mad Fold-in
. As of 2010, Jaffee remains a regular in the magazine after 55 years and is its longest-running contributor. Only one issue of Mad has been published since 1964 without containing new material by Jaffee. In a 2010 interview, Jaffee said, "Serious people my age are dead."
In 2008, Jaffee was honored by the Reuben Awards as the Cartoonist of the Year. New Yorker
cartoonist Arnold Roth
said, "Al Jaffee is one of the great cartoonists of our time." Describing Jaffee, Peanuts
creator Charles Schulz wrote, "Al can cartoon anything."
, Jaffee spent six years of his childhood in Lithuania
, returning to America in advance of the Nazi takeover. He studied at The High School of Music & Art
in New York City
in the late 1930s, along with future Mad personnel Will Elder
, Harvey Kurtzman
, John Severin
and Al Feldstein
.
and Atlas Comics
, the 1940s and 1950s precursors, respectively, of Marvel Comics
. While working alongside future Mad cartoonist Dave Berg, Jaffee created several humor features for Timely, including "Inferior Man" and "Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal
". For approximately a year and a half in the late 1940s, Jaffee was editing Timely's humor and teenage comics, including the "Patsy Walker" line.
Jaffee recalled in a 2004 interview,
From 1957-1963, Jaffee drew the elongated Tall Tales panel for the New York Herald Tribune
, which was syndicated to over 100 newspapers. Jaffee credited its middling success with a pantomime format that was easy to sell abroad, but his higher-ups were unsatisfied with the strip's status: "The head of the syndicate, who was a certifiable idiot, said the reason it was not selling [better] is we gotta put words in it. So they made me put words in it. Immediately lost 28 foreign papers." A collection of Jaffee's Tall Tales strips was published in 2008. Jaffee also scripted the short-lived strips Debbie Deere and Jason in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since 1984, Jaffee has provided illustrations for "The Shpy," a lighthearted Jewish-themed adventure feature in Tzivos Hashem
's bimonthly children's publication The Moshiach Times.
left in a dispute, Jaffee went with Kurtzman. Jaffee contributed to Kurtzman's first two post-Mad publishing efforts, Trump
and the creator-owned Humbug
. In 2008, the first full reprint of Humbug was published as a two-volume set by Fantagraphics; the set includes a newly commissioned cover illustration by Jaffee, and a co-interview with Jaffee and Arnold Roth
.
After Humbug folded in 1958, Jaffee brought his unpublished material to Mad, which bought the work. "Bill Gaines took out every Trump and Humbug," remembered Jaffee, "called me into his office, sat me down on the couch next to him, and went over every issue and said "Which is yours?" And as he came to each one, when he saw my stuff, he OK'd to hire me."
, National Geographic and Life
. But Jaffee was asked to do a second installment, and soon the Fold-In became a recurring feature on the inside back cover of the magazine. In 2011. Jaffee reflected, "The thing that I got a kick out of was... Jeopardy! showed a Fold-in and the contestants all came up with the word they were looking for, which was “Fold-in.” So I realized, I created an English language word."
In 2010, Jaffee described the earliest Fold-In's:
The Fold-In has since become one of Mads signature features, and has appeared in almost every issue of the magazine from 1964-2008. A single issue in 1977 was published without a Fold-In (though Jaffee supplied the issue's back cover), and a 1980 issue featured a unique double-visual gimmick by Jaffee in which the inside back cover and the outside back cover merged to create a third image when held up to the light. The third-ever Fold-In in 1964 featured a unique diagonal folding design, rather than the standard left-right vertical format. The image revealed the four Beatles becoming bald (and thus losing their popularity).
The Far Side
creator Gary Larson
described his experience with the Fold-In: "The dilemma was always this: Very slowly and carefully fold the back cover... without creasing the page and quickly look at the joke. Jaffee's artistry before the folding was so amazing that I suspect I was not alone in not wanting to deface it in any way." In 1972, Jaffee received a Special Features Reuben Award for his Fold-Ins.
Jaffee only uses a computer for typographic maneuvers to make certain Fold-in tricks easier to design. Otherwise, all his work is done by hand. "I'm working on a hard, flat board... I cannot fold it. That's why my planning has to be so correct." In 2008, Jaffee told one newspaper, "I never see the finished painting folded until it's printed in the magazine. I guess I have that kind of visual mind where I can see the two sides without actually putting them together." Contrasting current art techniques and Jaffee's approach, Mads art director, Sam Viviano
, said, "I think part of the brilliance of the Fold-in is lost on the younger generations who are so used to Photoshop and being able to do stuff like that on a computer."
In August 2008, Jaffee was interviewed for a NY1
feature about his career. He said, "It astonishes me that I still am functioning at a fairly decent level. Because there were a lot of dark days, but you have to reinvent yourself. You get knocked down and you pick up yourself and you move on."
A four-volume boxed set of hardcovers, The Mad Fold-In Collection: 1964-2010, was published by Chronicle Books in September 2011.
Jaffee has contributed to hundreds of Mad articles as either a writer or an artist and often both. These include his long-running "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions", which present multiple putdowns for the same unnecessary or clueless inquiry, and several articles on invention
s and gadgets, which are presented in an elaborately detailed "blueprint" style. Sergio Aragones says of Jaffee, "He is brilliant at many things, but especially inventions. When he draws a machine for Mad, no matter how silly the idea, it always looks like it works. He thinks that way because he is not only an artist, but a technician as well... He is the guy who can do anything." In a patent file for a self-extinguishing cigarette, the inventor thanked Jaffee for providing the inspiration.
During the Vietnam War
, Jaffee also created the short-lived gag cartoon "Hawks and Doves", in which a military officer named Major Hawks is antagonized by Private Doves, an easygoing soldier who contrives to create surreptitious peace signs in various locations on a military base.
Some of Jaffee's features were expanded into stand-alone books, including a 1997 collection of Fold-Ins entitled Fold This Book! and eight "Snappy Answers" paperbacks. Referring to the latter, Jaffee said, "I was going through a divorce when I started that. I got a lot of my hostility out through Snappy Answers."
Advertising and Illustration Award for 1973, its Special Features Award for 1971 and 1975, and its Humor Comic Book Award for 1979. In 2008, he won the Reuben Awards' Cartoonist of the Year.
In 2005, the production company Motion Theory created a video for recording artist Beck
's song "Girl" using Jaffee's Mad Fold-ins as inspiration; Jaffee's name appears briefly in the video, on a television screen.
The March 13, 2006, episode of The Colbert Report aired on Jaffee's 85th birthday, and comedian Stephen Colbert
saluted the artist with a Fold-in birthday cake
. The cake featured the salutary message "Al, you have repeatedly shown artistry & care of great credit to your field." When the center section of the cake was removed, the remainder read, "Al, you are old."
That was not Jaffee's first interaction with the comedian. In 2010, he recalled:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
. He is notable for his work in the satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
, including his trademark feature, the Mad Fold-in
MAD fold-in
The Mad Fold-In is a feature found on the inside back cover of virtually every Mad magazine since 1964. Written and drawn by Al Jaffee, the Fold-In is one of the most well-known aspects of the magazine...
. As of 2010, Jaffee remains a regular in the magazine after 55 years and is its longest-running contributor. Only one issue of Mad has been published since 1964 without containing new material by Jaffee. In a 2010 interview, Jaffee said, "Serious people my age are dead."
In 2008, Jaffee was honored by the Reuben Awards as the Cartoonist of the Year. New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
cartoonist Arnold Roth
Arnold Roth
Arnold Roth is an American freelance cartoonist and illustrator for advertisements, album covers, books, magazines and newspapers.Novelist John Updike wrote, "All cartoonists are geniuses, but Arnold Roth is especially so."...
said, "Al Jaffee is one of the great cartoonists of our time." Describing Jaffee, Peanuts
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
creator Charles Schulz wrote, "Al can cartoon anything."
Early life
Born in Savannah, GeorgiaSavannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
, Jaffee spent six years of his childhood in Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, returning to America in advance of the Nazi takeover. He studied at The High School of Music & Art
The High School of Music & Art
The High School of Music & Art, informally known as "Music & Art", was a public alternative high school at 443-465 West 135th Street, New York, New York, USA that existed from 1936 through 1984, and then merged into the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in the late 1930s, along with future Mad personnel Will Elder
Will Elder
William Elder was an American illustrator and comic book artist who worked in numerous areas of commercial art, but is best known for a zany cartoon style that helped launch Harvey Kurtzman's Mad comic book in 1952....
, Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic books and magazines. Kurtzman often signed his name H. Kurtz, followed by a stick figure Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924, Brooklyn, New York – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic...
, John Severin
John Severin
John Powers Severin is an American comic book artist noted for his distinctive work with EC Comics, primarily on the war comics Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat; for Marvel Comics, primarily on its war and Western comics; and for the satiric magazine Cracked...
and Al Feldstein
Al Feldstein
Albert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...
.
Career
Jaffee began his career in 1941, working as a comic-book artist for several publications, including Timely ComicsTimely Comics
Timely Comics, an imprint of Timely Publications, was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics....
and Atlas Comics
Atlas Comics (1950s)
Atlas Comics is the term used to describe the 1950s comic book publishing company that would evolve into Marvel Comics. Magazine and paperback novel publisher Martin Goodman, whose business strategy involved having a multitude of corporate entities, used Atlas as the umbrella name for his comic...
, the 1940s and 1950s precursors, respectively, of Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
. While working alongside future Mad cartoonist Dave Berg, Jaffee created several humor features for Timely, including "Inferior Man" and "Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal
Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal
Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal are fictional, funny-animal comic-book characters created by cartoonist Al Jaffee for Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books....
". For approximately a year and a half in the late 1940s, Jaffee was editing Timely's humor and teenage comics, including the "Patsy Walker" line.
Jaffee recalled in a 2004 interview,
I created Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal from scratch.[ Editor-in-chief] Stan[Lee] Stan LeeStan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....
said to me, "Create an animated-type character. Something different, something new." I searched around and thought, "I’ve never seen anyone do anything about a seal," so I made him the lead character. So I created "Silly Seal". One day, Stan said to me, "Why don’t you give him a little friend of some sort?" I had already created Ziggy Pig, who had his own little feature, so it was quite easy to combine them into one series. I said, "How about Ziggy Pig?" Stan said, "Okay!" I should add that, while I created Ziggy Pig, it was Stan who named him.
From 1957-1963, Jaffee drew the elongated Tall Tales panel for the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
, which was syndicated to over 100 newspapers. Jaffee credited its middling success with a pantomime format that was easy to sell abroad, but his higher-ups were unsatisfied with the strip's status: "The head of the syndicate, who was a certifiable idiot, said the reason it was not selling [better] is we gotta put words in it. So they made me put words in it. Immediately lost 28 foreign papers." A collection of Jaffee's Tall Tales strips was published in 2008. Jaffee also scripted the short-lived strips Debbie Deere and Jason in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since 1984, Jaffee has provided illustrations for "The Shpy," a lighthearted Jewish-themed adventure feature in Tzivos Hashem
Tzivos Hashem
Tzivos Hashem, is a Brooklyn, New York based organization that was founded in 1980 by the Lubavitcher Rebbe as a youth group to serve both the physical and spiritual needs of Jewish children.-Participants:...
's bimonthly children's publication The Moshiach Times.
Mad
Jaffee first appeared in Mad in 1955, shortly after its transformation from comic book format to magazine. When editor Harvey KurtzmanHarvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic books and magazines. Kurtzman often signed his name H. Kurtz, followed by a stick figure Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924, Brooklyn, New York – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic...
left in a dispute, Jaffee went with Kurtzman. Jaffee contributed to Kurtzman's first two post-Mad publishing efforts, Trump
Trump (magazine)
Trump was a glossy magazine of satire and humor, mostly in the forms of comic-strip features and short stories. It was edited by Harvey Kurtzman and published by Hugh Hefner, with only two issues produced in 1957...
and the creator-owned Humbug
Humbug (magazine)
Humbug was a humor magazine edited 1957–1958 by Harvey Kurtzman with satirical jabs at movies, television, advertising and various artifacts of popular culture, from cereal boxes to fashion photographs...
. In 2008, the first full reprint of Humbug was published as a two-volume set by Fantagraphics; the set includes a newly commissioned cover illustration by Jaffee, and a co-interview with Jaffee and Arnold Roth
Arnold Roth
Arnold Roth is an American freelance cartoonist and illustrator for advertisements, album covers, books, magazines and newspapers.Novelist John Updike wrote, "All cartoonists are geniuses, but Arnold Roth is especially so."...
.
After Humbug folded in 1958, Jaffee brought his unpublished material to Mad, which bought the work. "Bill Gaines took out every Trump and Humbug," remembered Jaffee, "called me into his office, sat me down on the couch next to him, and went over every issue and said "Which is yours?" And as he came to each one, when he saw my stuff, he OK'd to hire me."
The Fold-In
In 1964, Jaffee created his longest-running Mad feature, the Fold-In. In each, a drawing is folded vertically and inward to reveal a new "hidden" picture (as well as a new caption). Originally, Jaffee intended it as a one-shot "cheap" satire of the triple fold-outs that were appearing in glossy magazines such as PlayboyPlayboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
, National Geographic and Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
. But Jaffee was asked to do a second installment, and soon the Fold-In became a recurring feature on the inside back cover of the magazine. In 2011. Jaffee reflected, "The thing that I got a kick out of was... Jeopardy! showed a Fold-in and the contestants all came up with the word they were looking for, which was “Fold-in.” So I realized, I created an English language word."
In 2010, Jaffee described the earliest Fold-In's:
- I thought to myself... now it's folded in and I've got to have something on the left side here, and something right side here. And the only thing that popped into my head was that Elizabeth TaylorElizabeth TaylorDame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
had just dumped Eddie FisherEddie Fisher (singer)Edwin Jack "Eddie" Fisher , was an American entertainer. He was one of the world's most famous and successful singers in the 1950s, selling millions of records and hosting his own TV show. His divorce from his first wife, Debbie Reynolds, to marry his best friend's widow, Elizabeth Taylor, garnered...
and was carrying on with Richard BurtonRichard BurtonRichard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
. So I had Elizabeth Taylor kissing Richard Burton, and a cop is holding the crowd back—and just for the fun of it I put Eddie Fisher being trampled by the crowd. What a cruel thing to do! And then, when you fold it in, she's moving on from Richard Burton and kissing the next guy in the crowd. It's so simplistic and silly and juvenile! And anyone could have done that! - I showed it to Al FeldsteinAl FeldsteinAlbert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...
, and the first thing I said was, "Al, I've got this crazy idea, and you're not going to buy it, because it mutilates the magazine." So I put it in front of him, and the thing about Al was, he liked things that intrigued him. The mechanics of it intrigued him. He said, "You mean, you fold it, like this...? And then...?" He folded it, he unfolded it, he folded it, and then he said, "I like this!" But I said, "Al, it mutilates the magazine." And he said, "Well, I'll have to check it with BillWilliam GainesWilliam Maxwell Gaines , better known as Bill Gaines, was an American publisher and co-editor of EC Comics. Following a shift in EC's direction in 1950, Gaines presided over what became an artistically influential and historically important line of mature-audience comics...
." He takes it, runs it to Bill's office, and he was there a little while, and he comes back and he says, "We're going to do it! You know what Bill said? Bill said, 'So they mutilate the magazine, and then they'll buy another one to save!' - Four or five weeks later, Al comes over to me and says, "When are you going to do the next Fold-in?" And I said, "I don't have another Fold-in. That was it!" So he said, "Come on, you can come up with something else." I wracked my brain, and the only thing I could come up with was Nixon [whose face was hidden within curtain folds]. That one really set the tone for what the cleverness of the Fold-ins has to be. It couldn't just be bringing someone from the left to kiss someone on the right."
The Fold-In has since become one of Mads signature features, and has appeared in almost every issue of the magazine from 1964-2008. A single issue in 1977 was published without a Fold-In (though Jaffee supplied the issue's back cover), and a 1980 issue featured a unique double-visual gimmick by Jaffee in which the inside back cover and the outside back cover merged to create a third image when held up to the light. The third-ever Fold-In in 1964 featured a unique diagonal folding design, rather than the standard left-right vertical format. The image revealed the four Beatles becoming bald (and thus losing their popularity).
The Far Side
The Far Side
The Far Side is a popular single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from January 1, 1980, to January 1, 1995. Its surrealistic humor is often based on uncomfortable social situations, improbable events, an anthropomorphic view of the world,...
creator Gary Larson
Gary Larson
Gary Larson is the creator of The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to newspapers for 15 years. The series ended with Larson's retirement on January 1, 1995. His 23 books of collected cartoons have combined sales of more than 45 million...
described his experience with the Fold-In: "The dilemma was always this: Very slowly and carefully fold the back cover... without creasing the page and quickly look at the joke. Jaffee's artistry before the folding was so amazing that I suspect I was not alone in not wanting to deface it in any way." In 1972, Jaffee received a Special Features Reuben Award for his Fold-Ins.
Jaffee only uses a computer for typographic maneuvers to make certain Fold-in tricks easier to design. Otherwise, all his work is done by hand. "I'm working on a hard, flat board... I cannot fold it. That's why my planning has to be so correct." In 2008, Jaffee told one newspaper, "I never see the finished painting folded until it's printed in the magazine. I guess I have that kind of visual mind where I can see the two sides without actually putting them together." Contrasting current art techniques and Jaffee's approach, Mads art director, Sam Viviano
Sam Viviano
Sam Viviano is an American caricature artist and art director. Viviano’s caricatures are known for their wide jaws, which Viviano has explained is a result of his incorporation of side views as well as front views into his distortions of the human face. He has also developed a reputation for his...
, said, "I think part of the brilliance of the Fold-in is lost on the younger generations who are so used to Photoshop and being able to do stuff like that on a computer."
In the 2000s
As of 2010, Jaffee continues to do the Fold-In for Mad, as well as creating specially commissioned artwork. Mads oldest regular contributor, Jaffee's work has appeared in over 450 issues of the magazine, a total unmatched by any other writer or artist. He has said, "I work for a magazine that's essentially for young people, and to have them keep me going, I feel very lucky.... To use an old cliché, I'm like an old racehorse. When the other horses are running, I want to run too."In August 2008, Jaffee was interviewed for a NY1
NY1
NY1, New York One, is a 24-hour cable-news television channel focusing on the five boroughs of New York City. In addition to news and weather forecasts, the channel also features human-interest segments such as the "New Yorker of the Week" and the "Scholar Athlete of the Week", and specialty...
feature about his career. He said, "It astonishes me that I still am functioning at a fairly decent level. Because there were a lot of dark days, but you have to reinvent yourself. You get knocked down and you pick up yourself and you move on."
A four-volume boxed set of hardcovers, The Mad Fold-In Collection: 1964-2010, was published by Chronicle Books in September 2011.
Frequent themes
Will Forbis wrote: "This is the core of Jaffee's work: the idea that to be alive is to be constantly beleaguered by annoying idiots, poorly designed products and the unapologetic ferocity of fate. Competence and intelligence are not rewarded in life but punished."Jaffee has contributed to hundreds of Mad articles as either a writer or an artist and often both. These include his long-running "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions", which present multiple putdowns for the same unnecessary or clueless inquiry, and several articles on invention
Invention
An invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...
s and gadgets, which are presented in an elaborately detailed "blueprint" style. Sergio Aragones says of Jaffee, "He is brilliant at many things, but especially inventions. When he draws a machine for Mad, no matter how silly the idea, it always looks like it works. He thinks that way because he is not only an artist, but a technician as well... He is the guy who can do anything." In a patent file for a self-extinguishing cigarette, the inventor thanked Jaffee for providing the inspiration.
During the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, Jaffee also created the short-lived gag cartoon "Hawks and Doves", in which a military officer named Major Hawks is antagonized by Private Doves, an easygoing soldier who contrives to create surreptitious peace signs in various locations on a military base.
Some of Jaffee's features were expanded into stand-alone books, including a 1997 collection of Fold-Ins entitled Fold This Book! and eight "Snappy Answers" paperbacks. Referring to the latter, Jaffee said, "I was going through a divorce when I started that. I got a lot of my hostility out through Snappy Answers."
Awards and recognition
Jaffee won the National Cartoonists SocietyNational Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
Advertising and Illustration Award for 1973, its Special Features Award for 1971 and 1975, and its Humor Comic Book Award for 1979. In 2008, he won the Reuben Awards' Cartoonist of the Year.
In 2005, the production company Motion Theory created a video for recording artist Beck
Beck
Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
's song "Girl" using Jaffee's Mad Fold-ins as inspiration; Jaffee's name appears briefly in the video, on a television screen.
The March 13, 2006, episode of The Colbert Report aired on Jaffee's 85th birthday, and comedian Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...
saluted the artist with a Fold-in birthday cake
Birthday cake
The birthday cake has been an integral part of the birthday celebrations in Western cultures since the middle of the 19th century. Certain rituals and traditions, such as singing of birthday songs, associated with birthday cakes are common to many Western cultures. The Western tradition of adding...
. The cake featured the salutary message "Al, you have repeatedly shown artistry & care of great credit to your field." When the center section of the cake was removed, the remainder read, "Al, you are old."
That was not Jaffee's first interaction with the comedian. In 2010, he recalled:
- I got a call from The Daily ShowThe Daily ShowThe Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
—they asked me if I would contribute a Fold-in to their book, AmericaAmerica (The Book)America : A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction is a 2004 non-fiction book written by Jon Stewart and other writers of The Daily Show that parodies and satirizes American politics and worldview...
. I said I'd be happy to do it. When I was done, I called up the producer who'd contacted me, and I said, "I've finished the Fold-in, where shall I send it?" And he said—and this was a great compliment—"Oh, please Mr. Jaffee, could you deliver it in person? The whole crew wants to meet you." And that's where I met Stephen Colbert and Jon StewartJon StewartJon Stewart is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian...
and all the writers, and they told me it was our work in Mad that inspired them. Not me, particularly, but us, generally... They said, "Without you guys, we wouldn't be here." And I felt really good about that.
Biography
Mary-Lou Weisman, a friend of Jaffee for more than three decades, wrote a profile of him for Provincetown Arts, which she later expanded into the biography, Al Jaffee's Mad Life, published in 2010 by !t Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. In addition to reprints of his past work, Jaffee joined Weisman in telling his life story with more than 70 color illustrations depicting his childhood and later years.External links
- Complete list of Jaffee's Mad articles
- Al Jaffee Wins the Reuben Award, Cartoonist of the Year
- Part One of a Jaffee interview, TheDailyCrosshatch.com
- Part Two of a Jaffee interview, TheDailyCrosshatch.com
- Part Three of a Jaffee interview, TheDailyCrosshatch.com
- "Fold-Ins, Past and Present", NYTimes.comThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
interactive feature, March 28, 2008