I remember Al Jaffee for the back-cover fold-ins that he did for MAD Magazine. He was 102 and only retired in 2020! I heard Dick DeBatolo (MAD writer) talking about him last year, doing something for an upcoming MAD anniversary issue or something. (Dick's getting up there too!)

Rest in peace, Al, and thanks for all the fun back covers.

Al Jaffee and his artwork was a huge hit in our house. Thats a long life and as far as I can tell, a life well-lived.

He was great! Lots of gaffaws provided. A very wise fellow obviously doing a labor of love even into his 100s.

It has been at least 20 years since I've read an issue of MAD, but they were refreshing back in the day when things weren't so uptight and locked down. As were the hundreds (?) of paperbacks Jaffee illustrated.

Such good memories of his stuff as a kid, a teen and as an adult!

Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions was probably my favorite feature by him but the Fold-Ins were a close second. Snappy Answers gave me a lot of ammo on the playground as a kid.

Thanks Al! You will be missed!

Posted this in the political cartoon thread, but it should be here, too.

Wow. I never realized that was still him doing the fold-ins well into 2020. I mistakenly assumed it was someone who knew how to imitate his style well.

He'll be missed, but what a wonderfully long and full life he had.

I used to love Mad Magazine, and the fold-ins. I remember always trying to see what the fold-ins would make, without putting in hard creases. Thanks to Al for a lot of great illustrations. 102, that's awesome.

A fantastic run of great writing.

I still subscribe. What a run.

I mentioned in another thread that there needs too be Mad Magazine Omnibuses.

I don't disagree though luckily, I have pretty much all the Mad Magazine issues digitally.

I also have this and this


This was one of my all-time favorite books I had as a kid but just one of the many large and smaller paperback books of MAD collections, not even including all the magazines I had:

I was surprised to see him get a nice mention on Colbert the other night:

As a kid in the '60s and '70s, I appreciated Mad's irreverence and its eagerness to mock all sorts of sacred cows. I stopped buying issues in the '90s after the humor became less social/political/cultural and more juvenile/adolescent gross-out in nature.

It's almost garage sale season, I may keep an eye out for some of those paperback compilations.