Posted on 04/11/2023 8:19:04 AM PDT by Morgana
The award-winning Mad Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee has died at the age of 102.
Jaffee died on Monday in Manhattan from multiple organ failure, according to his granddaughter, Fani Thomson. He had retired at the age of 99.
Mad magazine, with its wry, sometimes pointed send-ups of politics and culture, was essential reading for teens and preteens during the baby-boom era and an inspiration for countless future comedians.
Few of the magazine's self-billed 'Usual Gang of Idiots' contributed as much — and as dependably — as the impish, bearded cartoonist.
For decades, virtually every issue featured new material by Jaffee. 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.
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.
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 costar Richard Burton.
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.
Fold the picture in and Taylor and the young man are kissing.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I remember MAD did a parody of All In The Family, where Archie had Hitler over as a guest.
And that was when I first learned who Adolf Hitler was.
Yeah that name goes waaaaay back
Just shows that retirement will do you in!
Heh
A genius. RIP.
Still accurate too.
I remember that one.
Amazing.
Mad Magazine and The Realist (Paul Krassner) informed my political views. We need such people today. These anti-authoritarianism views are sorely needed today in the face of the surveillance state and Deep State.
I read Mad Magazine throughout my youth, eventually graduating to National Lampoon.
Agreed!
We had that record and played it until my parents caused it to disappear.
Jaffee was good, but my favorite MAD cartoonists were Will Elder and Jack Davis from the earliest days. Mort Drucker was another good one.
Yep that’s the one
Loved the fold in. NEVER Retire!
“Fold-ins” only work with that archaic medium “paper”.
When I had kids I learned that disappearing trick too.
He died too young...
We read MAD Magazine all the time in the 50’s.
Rest his brain?
They should have included the fold!
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