NOS News•
American cartoonist Al Jaffee has died at the age of 102. He is considered one of the most important cartoonists of his time. Jaffee worked for 65 years for the satirical magazine Mad, which also published a Dutch version for decades. With his drawing career running from 1942 to 2020, Jaffee is world record holder: nobody made comics longer than him.
Jaffee was born in the US state of Georgia to Lithuanian immigrants. In his youth he moved twice to Lithuania and back to the US. He spent his teenage years in New York City, where he studied art.
In 1942, Jaffee began his drawing career at, among others, the predecessor of Marvel Comics and the now defunct newspaper New York Herald Tribune. His first contribution to Mad Magazine was in the mid-1950s, after which he quickly grew into a loyal force. Between 1964 and 2013, there was only one edition of the magazine without a contribution from Jaffee.
Crazy, but not good
The satirical magazine Mad first appeared in 1952. The magazine pokes fun at comics, films, politics and pop culture, among other things. A Dutch version was published from 1964 to 1996, which was partly filled with translations of American comics, but also with a growing number of Dutch contributions. The magazine’s Dutch motto was ‘Crazy but not good’.
One of Jaffee’s most distinctive contributions to Mad was the so-called fold-ins. By folding the back page, a completely different drawing was created, which gave a comical answer to a question. He also edited the section Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, in which different witty answers are given to the same (silly) question.
Jaffee continued his work into old age. It wasn’t until he was 99 that he retired.
