Happy 90th B-day, Al Jaffee!
Lenona
I think the first time I heard of him was from "Al Jaffee's Mad Book
of Magic and Other Dirty Tricks." Later I found the "Snappy Answers to
Stupid Questions" books.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22al+jaffee%22+90th&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=nw
(a LOT of articles about today)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jaffee
Excerpts:
"In 1964 he created the MAD fold-in."
"MAD's oldest regular contributor, he has appeared in at least 400
issues of the magazine, a total unmatched by any other writer or
artist there."
http://motherjones.com/media/2010/09/interview-al-jaffee-mad-life-snappy-answers
("Mother Jones" interview from last September)
Last paragraphs:
........MJ: Would the humor from Mad's heyday sell today, or are kids
too sophisticated?
AJ: I know that they are more bombarded. When Mad first started, I did
an article called "Egoboosters." One of my ideas was to find an old
telephone and put it in your car, and when you pull up next to
somebody at a stoplight, push a button to make it ring, and pick it up
and start talking into it. People will be so flabbergasted that your
ego will soar. So, how are you going to impress a kid today? Any kind
of invention that I could come up with will be here tomorrow—I'm
talking about a crazy invention like a telephone in your car! So, the
kids of today are too sophisticated for the Mad of 25 years ago. When
Mad first came out, in 1952, it was the only game in town. Now, you've
got graduates from Mad who are doing The Today Show or Stephen Colbert
or Saturday Night Live. All of these people grew up on Mad. Now Mad
has to top them. So Mad is almost in a competition with itself.
MJ: You say you are still trying to prove adults are full of ----.
What gets you worked up these days?
AJ: You could walk up to somebody and say, "What would you think if we
made the air clean that we breathe?" and that person could turn around
and say, "You want me to lose my job?" I mean, we are polarized. Any
improvement you want to make—in health care, in air quality, in
preventing global warming, turning things green—you are going to find
an equal number of people who are against it without knowing why. A
satirist's job is impossible today. A teabagger who would tune into
Stephen Colbert would accuse him of being a communist.
http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=webhp&q=%22al+jaffee%22+interview&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=4cea5cfbaf698700
(other interviews)
http://www.collectmad.com/britishcovers/aljaffee.htm
(some of his books)
http://www.lambiek.net/artists/j/jaffee_al.htm
(two samples)
http://graphics.boston.com/globe/magazine/2000/8-27/interview.shtml
(interview & bio - he lived in a shtetl in Lithuania when little)
http://snobsite.com/comix/archives/cat_al_jaffee.php
(more of his work)
http://images.google.com/images?q=%22al+jaffee%22&hl=en
And, from Jaffee's 85th birthday:
"Mark Evanier reports (belatedly) on Jaffee's birthday
with an item on Comedy Central's faux Fox News satire
The Colbert Report (think Bill O'Reilly, Josh Gibson, et. al.),
wherein Stephen Colbert honors Al":
http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2006_03_17.html#011165
(Note what it says under the photo of the cake!)
Lenona.
D.D.Degg
> I think the first time I heard of him was from "Al Jaffee's Mad Book
> of Magic and Other Dirty Tricks." Later I found the "Snappy Answers to
> Stupid Questions" books.
Yeah, I got most of his paperback books through the 1980s.
Here's a list - click on the title to see the cover:
http://www.collectmad.com/collectibles/pbchklst.htm#AL%20JAFFEE
> "MAD's oldest regular contributor, he has appeared in at least 400
> issues of the magazine, a total unmatched by any other writer or
> artist there."
And here's an index of his MAD magazine contributions:
http://www.madcoversite.com/ugoi-al_jaffee-printable.html
> "In 1964 he created the MAD fold-in."
Some Fold-Ins: http://www.perturb.org/content/foldin/
Also excerpted from the Wikipedia entry:
"From 1957-1963, Jaffee drew the elongated Tall Tales panel for the
New York Herald Tribune, which was syndicated to over 100 newspapers.
Jaffee credited its middling success with a pantomime format that was
easy to sell abroad, but his higher-ups were unsatisfied with the
strip's status: "The head of the syndicate, who was a certifiable
idiot, said the reason it was not selling [better] is we gotta put
words in it. So they made me put words in it. Immediately lost 28
foreign papers."
Ger Apeldoorn has posted a number of Tall Tales at
http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/search/label/Tall%20Tales
Al Jaffee's Debbie Deere comic strip was an Alan Holtz Obscurity
entry:
http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2007/04/obscurity-of-day-debbie-deere.html
He also did a comic strip called Jason,
but I can't find samples of that.
D.D.Degg
Beefies
> got graduates from Mad who are doing The Today Show or Stephen Colbert
> or Saturday Night Live. All of these people grew up on Mad. Now Mad
> has to top them. So Mad is almost in a competition with itself.
> Also excerpted from the Wikipedia entry:
> "From 1957-1963, Jaffee drew the elongated Tall Tales panel for the
> New York Herald Tribune, which was syndicated to over 100 newspapers.
> >
My publisher Abrams put out a neat little "Tall Tales" collection a few
years ago (with an Intro by Stephen Colbert, speak of the devil), which gave
me an excuse to meet Mr. Jaffee
(http://momscancer.blogspot.com/2008/07/comic-con-08.html) . What a
wonderful, warm, unassuming man! He had two qualities I've really come to
appreciate in a few "old-time" cartoonists with whom I've talked: he seemed
grateful and even a little puzzled that anyone was interested in his work at
all, and he treated me like a peer even though I wasn't. Later, he was kind
enough to give me a very gracious blurb for my book "Whatever Happened to
the World of Tomorrow" because he actually attended the 1939 World's Fair
(which figures in my book) as a young man. I'm a fan for life. Anyway, check
out the "Tall Tales" book if you're interested, I enjoyed it as an obscure
bit of comics history and some funny, interesting strips in their own right.
Brian F.
brianfies.blogspot.com
Mark Jackson
> What a wonderful, warm, unassuming man! He had two qualities I've
> really come to appreciate in a few "old-time" cartoonists with whom
> I've talked: he seemed grateful and even a little puzzled that anyone
> was interested in his work at all
Possibly this has something to do with the fact that cartooning, hardly
viewed with universal respect today, received even less in the past.
Jules Feiffer's take on this was recently quoted by Matt Bors:
http://mattbors.com/blog/2011/02/15/feiffer-cartoonist/
(I've just finished reading /Backing Into Forward/. Interesting - the
early chapters are about as self-lacerating as one would expect from
Feiffer - but less about the cartooning itself than the life
opportunities it has afforded, most of which he says he fell into more
or less by happenstance. Hence the title.)
--
Mark Jackson - http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~mjackson
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
- Voltaire
Peter B. Steiger
> Possibly this has something to do with the fact that cartooning, hardly
> viewed with universal respect today, received even less in the past.
I can not for anything convince my wife that any kind of cartooning is a
powerful medium for serious thought (I'm talkin' to YOU, Beefies); at one
level she knows it's not just kid stuff but the lapsed Mensa person
inside of her keeps telling her not to listen. The Toy Story [tm]
franchise is right up her alley with relationshippy chick flick elements
scattered throughout, but she'll never know because she doesn't want to
bother with "only a cartoon".
*sigh*
--
Peter B. Steiger
Cheyenne, WY
If you must reply by email, you can reach me by placing zeroes
where you see stars: wypbs.**1 at gmail.com.
Blinky the Wonder Wombat
wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:03:21 -0400, Mark Jackson wrote:
> > Possibly this has something to do with the fact that cartooning, hardly
> > viewed with universal respect today, received even less in the past.
>
> I can not for anything convince my wife that any kind of cartooning is a
> powerful medium for serious thought (I'm talkin' to YOU, Beefies); at one
> level she knows it's not just kid stuff but the lapsed Mensa person
> inside of her keeps telling her not to listen. The Toy Story [tm]
> franchise is right up her alley with relationshippy chick flick elements
> scattered throughout, but she'll never know because she doesn't want to
> bother with "only a cartoon".
>
> *sigh*
It's tough living in a mixed marriage, isn't it?
Jym Dyer
> What a wonderful, warm, unassuming man! He had two qualities
> I've really come to appreciate in a few "old-time" cartoonists
> with whom I've talked: he seemed grateful and even a little
> puzzled that anyone was interested in his work at all, and he
> treated me like a peer even though I wasn't.
=v= I was fortunate enough to meet him about 5 years ago, thanks
to Nina Paley, and I agree. I was definitely more of a gushing
fanboy than a peer, though.
=v= He did some pieces for _MAD_ in the 1970s describing various
completely insane "inventions" to solve everyday problems, which
probably turned me into a recycling-happy dumpster-diver. Nina
was too young when these were printed, so I dug some of them out
of my Mom's attic to show her, and she became a gushing fangirl
all over again. :^)
<_Jym_>
Jym Dyer
> received even less in the past. Jules Feiffer's take on
> this was recently quoted by Matt Bors:
http://mattbors.com/blog/2011/02/15/feiffer-cartoonist/
=v= Ugh. Have you *seen* "The Little Murders?" "Gee whiz,
we're shooting at people, how trenchantly cutting edge and
it totally means something important!"
<_Jym_>