Al Jaffee, the celebrated and much-laureled cartoonist known to generations for his clever creations for MAD magazine, died Monday in Manhattan due to multiple organ failure. The news was shared by his granddaughter, Fani Thomson.
Born Abraham Jaffee on March 13, 1921 in Savannah, Georgia, the humorist had a rocky upbringing as the oldest of four children born to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, moving back and forth across the Atlantic several times. The family settled in Queens without their mother, who stayed behind in her native Zarasai and was later presumed to have died during the Nazi invasion.
His made his MAD magazine debut in 1955, but soon left with outgoing editor and his old school friend Kurtzman to work for his Trump and Humbug publications. When these folded in the late ’50s, Jaffee returned to the MAD fold. A few years later, in 1964, Jaffee approached Feldstein with his idea for the first Fold-In cover, which would riff on the scandal of Elizabeth Taylor leaving her husband Eddie Fisher for her Cleopatra co-star Richard Burton. Feldstein and Bill Gaines were immediately enthusiastic, and Jaffee was soon asked for a new Fold-In, and the intricate and clever gimmick soon appeared in almost every issue.
“What I always loved about the Fold-In is that it couldn’t be enjoyed passively. I don’t think people want to be lumps, letting you fill their heads with ideas. They want to participate,” Jaffee said in a 2017 Vanity Fair interview. “… I’m always thinking, can I surprise them again? Surprise is what creates a genuine laugh. I think I get the same joy in doing the Fold-In every month as people who love doing crossword puzzles week after week. A crossword is always the same general concept, but if it’s done well, it’s different and challenging. You never tire of using your brain.”
Jaffee also notably created the Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions as well as humorous articles about concepts for newfangled inventions — many of which turned out to be very accurate predictions.
He continued creating for MAD and other publications into the new millennium. Among his many career accolades, Jaffee was presented with a Sergio Award from the Comic Art Professional Society in 2011, inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2013, elected to the Society of Illustrators’ Hall of Fame in 2014, and was officially declared to have had “the longest career as a comics artist” (73 year, three months) by Guinness World Records in 2016, well before he retired at age 99.
In 2010, It Books published Al Jaffee’s Mad Life: A Biography, written by Jaffee’s friend Mary-Lou Weisman and illustrated by the subject.
Jaffee was predeceased by his second wife, Joyce Revenson in 2020. He had two children, Richard and Debbie, with his first wife, Ruth Ahlquist.
