This is huge news that Al Jaffi, an inventive cartoonist at Madh Magazine, died. He left this world at the age of 102. This is very big news for his fans. For 55 years they produced the Fold-In (as opposed to Playboy’s Fold-Out), giving readers a satirical double-take on whatever was going on in the news or elsewhere. Al Jaffee at work in 2008. In 2007, he won cartooning’s top honor, placing him alongside Charles M. Schulz, Mort Walker, Gary Larson, Matt Groening, and others. Credit…Librado Romero/The New York Times. Al Jaffee, a cartoonist who turned when the magazine publication trend was dying out to create one of Mad magazine’s most recognizable and enduring features, died Monday in Manhattan. He was 102 years old.
In 1964 Mr. Jaffee created the Mad Fold-In, an illustration-with-text feature inside the magazine’s back cover that at first look appeared to get a direct message. When the page was folded into thirds, however, both the illustration and the text were completely different and unexpectedly transformed, often with a liberal-leaning or anti-authoritarian message. The first fold-in, in the April 1964 issue “No. 86”, mocked Elizabeth Taylor’s marital record. “Unfolded, she’s with Richard Burton; folded, she’s traded him for another guy.” No one, especially Mr. Jaffee, expected hundreds more to come after the fold-in. “It really should have been shot,” he said in a 1993 interview with the Kansas City Star. “But because of the huge demand from three or four of my relatives, it went on and on a second time.”
Al Jaffee Cause of Death?
That “on and on” turned into a career that included other unique contributions to Mad, such as the “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” feature, and in 2007 he won cartooning’s top honor, the Reuben Award, which earned him the honor of Charles placed in M. Schultz, Mort Walker, Gary Larson, Matt Groening and other stalwarts of the business. When Mr. Jaffee was 6 years old, his mother threw his home life into trouble by moving him and his three younger brothers back to her residence in Lithuania. Even after this, he did not give up and he took care of himself and his younger brothers as well.
Al Jaffee, a cartoonist who turned when the magazine publication trend was dying out to create one of Mad magazine’s most recognizable and enduring features, died Monday in Manhattan. His granddaughter “Fani Thomson” said he died in a hospital due to multi-system organ failure. His fans are expressing their sorrow by posting on social media. He left this world due to multi-system organ failure. His fans are depressed to hear the news of his death. May his soul rest in peace.
