Al Jaffee

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Not to be confused with Allan Jaffe or Al Jaffe.
Al Jaffee
Born March 13, 1921 (1921-03-13) (age 88)
Savannah, Georgia, USA
Nationality American
Field Cartoonist
Works Mad, Trump, Humbug, Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,[1] Tall Tales[2]
Awards Reuben Award – 2008
National Cartoonists Society Advertising and Illustration Award for 1973
Special Features Award for 1971 and 1975
Humor Comic Book Award for 1979

Al Jaffee (born March 13, 1921 in Savannah, Georgia) is an award-winning American cartoonist. He is best known for his work in Mad, including his trademark feature, the Mad Fold-in, which has appeared in almost every issue since 1964. In 2008, Jaffee was honored by the Reuben Awards as the Cartoonist of the Year.

Describing Jaffee, "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz wrote, "Al can cartoon anything." New Yorker cartoonist Arnold Roth has said, "Al Jaffee is one of the great cartoonists of our time".[3] Fellow Mad contributor Sergio Aragonés calls Jaffee "the guy who can do anything."[4]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Jaffee spent six years of his childhood in Lithuania, returning to America in advance of the Nazis' 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.[5][6]

He began his career in 1941 working as a comic book artist for several publications, including Timely Comics and Atlas Comics, the 1940s and '50s precursors, respectively, of Marvel Comics. While working alongside future MAD cartoonist Dave Berg, Jaffee created several humor features for Timely, including "Inferior Man", "Super Rabbit", and "Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal". For approximately a year and a half in the late 1940s, Al Jaffee was editing Timely's humor and teenage comics, notably "Patsy Walker".

From 1958-1965, 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."[7] 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.[8]

[edit] Career with MAD

Jaffee first appeared in MAD in 1955, shortly after its transformation from comic book format to magazine. When editor Harvey Kurtzman 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."[9]

Five decades later, Jaffee is still a regular in the magazine. No other current Mad contributor dates back further. Only one issue of Mad has been published since 1964 without containing new material by Jaffee.[10]

[edit] The Fold-In

In 1964, Jaffee created his longest-running feature, the "MAD Fold-In." Originally, Jaffee's idea was intended as a one-shot "cheap" satire of the triple fold-outs that were appearing in glossy magazines such as Playboy and Life. But Jaffee was asked to do a second installment, then a third, and the Fold-In soon became a recurring feature on the inside back cover of the magazine. In each, a drawing is folded vertically and inward to reveal a new "hidden" picture (as well as a new caption). The Fold-In has since become one of Mad's signature features, and has appeared in almost every issue of the magazine from 1964-2008. [11]

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."[12] In 1972 Jaffee received a Special Features Reuben Award for his Fold-Ins.

[edit] Frequent themes

Jaffee has contributed to hundreds of MAD articles, both as a writer and an artist. These include his long-running "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions", and several articles on inventions and gadgets, which were 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."[13] In a patent file for a self-extinguishing cigarette, the inventor thanked Jaffee for providing the inspiration.[14]

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."[15]

Many of Jaffee's features were popular enough to be 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."[16]

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 peace signs in various locations on a military base.

[edit] His work today

As of 2008, Jaffee continues to do the Fold-In for MAD, as well as creating specially commissioned artwork. MAD's oldest regular contributor, Jaffee's work has appeared in over 440 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."[17]

Jaffee only uses a computer for typographic maneuvers to make certain fold-in tricks easier to design. Otherwise, all of 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 the Cape Cod Times, "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."[18] Contrasting current art techniques and Jaffee's approach, MAD's 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."[19]

In August 2008 he was the subject of an interview on NY1 in a special feature about his career by NY1 reporter Budd Mishkin.[1] "It astonishes me that I still am functioning at a fairly decent level,” Jaffee told Mishkin. “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." [20]

[edit] Cultural citations and references

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."[21]

Jaffee's work has earned him the National Cartoonists Society Advertising and Illustration Award for 1973, Special Features Award for 1971 and 1975, and Humor Comic Book Award for 1979. In 2008, he was the winner of the Reuben Awards' Cartoonist of the Year.[22]

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.[23]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b [1]
  2. ^ [Tall Tales, Jaffee, Al, and Colbert, Stephen (Introduction by) Edition: Illustrated. Binding: Hard cover Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers Date Published: 2008, ISBN 9780810972728 ISBN 0810972727
  3. ^ Fold This Book!, Warner Books, 1997, ISBN 0-446-91212-3
  4. ^ Mark Evanier, MAD Art, Watson-Guphill Publications, 2002, ISBN 0-8230-3080-6
  5. ^ Mark Evanier, MAD Art, Watson-Guptill Publications, 2002, ISBN 0-8230-3080-6
  6. ^ Neil Genzlinger, "A Veteran Mad Man Remains in the Fold," New York Times, "Arts and Leisure," 25, March 30, 2008
  7. ^ The Comics Journal #225, Fantagraphics Publications, July 2000, pg. 43
  8. ^ ttp://lambiek.net/artists/j/jaffee_al.htm
  9. ^ The Comics Journal #225, Fantagraphics Publications, July 2000, pg. 43
  10. ^ http://users.ipfw.edu/slaubau/madstreak.htm
  11. ^ Neil Genzlinger, "A Veteran Mad Man Remains in the Fold," New York Times, "Arts and Leisure," 1, 25, March 30, 2008
  12. ^ Fold This Book!, Warner Books, 1997, ISBN 0-446-91212-3
  13. ^ Mark Evanier, MAD Art, Watson-Guptill Publications, 2002, ISBN 0-8230-3080-6
  14. ^ The Comics Journal #225, Fantagraphics Publications, July 2000, pg. 43
  15. ^ http://www.forbisthemighty.com/acidlogic/im_al_jaffee.htm
  16. ^ Mark Evanier, MAD Art, Watson-Guptill Publications, 2002, ISBN 0-8230-3080-6
  17. ^ Neil Genzlinger, "A Veteran Mad Man Remains in the Fold," New York Times, "Arts and Leisure," 1, March 30, 2008
  18. ^ http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080628/LIFE/806280303
  19. ^ Neil Genzlinger, "A Veteran Mad Man Remains in the Fold," New York Times, "Arts and Leisure," 25, March 30, 2008
  20. ^ http://www.ny1news.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=235&aid=84279
  21. ^ NYTimes
  22. ^ Astor, Dave (2008-05-27). "'Mad' Magazine Legend and Newspaper Cartoonists Among NCS Winners". Editor & Publisher (Nielsen Business Media). http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/syndicates/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003808284. Retrieved on 2008-05-27. 
  23. ^ video, retrieved August 28, 2008

[edit] External links

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