He drew for Timely Comics, which became Marvel Comics, and for several years sketched the “Tall Tales” panel for the New York Herald Tribune. (His mother, meanwhile, remained in Lithuania and was apparently killed during the war). His schoolmates included Will Elder, a future Mad illustrator, and Harvey Kurtzmann, a future Mad editor. With paper scarce and no school to attend, he learned to read and write through the comic strips mailed by his father.īy his teens, he was settled in New York City and so obviously gifted that he was accepted into the High School of Music & Art. In Lithuania, Jaffee endured poverty and bullying, but also developed his craft. He was born in Savannah, Georgia, but for years was torn between the U.S., where his father (a department store manager) preferred to live, and Lithuania, where his mother (a religious Jew) longed to return.
In 2010, he contributed illustrations to Mary-Lou Weisman’s “Al Jaffee’s Mad Life: A Biography.” The following year, Chronicle Books published “The MAD Fold-In Collection: 1964-2010.”Īrt was the saving presence of his childhood, which left him with permanent distrust of adults and authority. Jaffee received numerous awards, and in 2013 was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, the ceremony taking place at San Diego Comic-Con International. Jaffee, could you deliver it in person? The whole crew wants to meet you,’ ” he told The Boston Phoenix. “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. Schulz of “Peanuts” fame and “Far Side” creator Gary Larson to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who marked Jaffee’s 85th birthday by featuring a Fold-In cake on “The Colbert Report.” When Stewart and “The Daily Show” writers put together the best-selling “America (The Book),” they asked Jaffee to contribute a Fold-In. He also anticipated peelable stamps, multiblade razors and self-extinguishing cigarettes. His parodies of advertisements included such future real-life products as automatic redialing for a telephone, a computer spell checker and graffiti-proof surfaces. Jaffee didn’t just satirize the culture he helped change it. “No,” he says, “I’m going to jump into the water and marry the gorgeous thing.” “Are you going to reel in the fish?” his wife asks. A comic from 1980 showed a man on a fishing boat with a noticeably bent reel. Jaffee was also known for “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,” which delivered exactly what the title promised. “It couldn’t just be bringing someone from the left to kiss someone on the right.”
“That one really set the tone for what the cleverness of the Fold-Ins has to be,” Jaffee told the Boston Phoenix in 2010. Jaffee devised a picture of 1964 GOP presidential contenders Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater that, when collapsed, became an image of Richard Nixon. The idea was so popular that Mad editor Al Feldstein wanted a follow-up. Jaffee first showed Taylor and Burton arm in arm on one side of the picture, and on the opposite side a young, handsome man being held back by a policeman.įold the picture in and Taylor and the young man are kissing. The Fold-In was supposed to be a onetime gag, tried out in 1964 when Jaffee satirized the biggest celebrity news of the time: Elizabeth Taylor dumping her husband, Eddie Fisher, in favor of “Cleopatra” co-star Richard Burton. Spy” and Dave Berg’s “The Lighter Side.” The premise, originally a spoof of the old Sports Illustrated and Playboy magazine foldouts, was that you started with a full-page drawing and question on top, folded two designated points toward the middle and produced a new and surprising image, along with the answer.
Readers savored his Fold-Ins like dessert, turning to them on the inside back cover after looking through such other favorites as Antonio Prohias’ “Spy. His collected “Fold-Ins,” taking on everyone in his unmistakably broad visual style from the Beatles to TMZ, was enough for a four-volume box set published in 2011.
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