RIP Al Jaffee (102), Mad cartoonist extraordinaire

[Astronuc]

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/remember-the-usual-gang-of-idiots.557121/

Al Jaffee, longtime Mad magazine cartoonist, dead at 102​

https://apnews.com/article/al-jafee-mad-magazine-cartoonist-dies-f676fbeb190b44c8aa4abcb0daa5d571

“Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions”

Mad magazine, with its wry, sometimes pointed send-ups of politics and culture, was essential reading for teens and preteens during the baby-boom era and inspiration for countless future comedians. Few of the magazine’s self-billed “Usual Gang of Idiots” contributed as much — and as dependably — as the impish, bearded cartoonist. For decades, virtually every issue featured new material by Jaffee. His collected “Fold-Ins,” taking on everyone in his unmistakably broad visual style from the Beatles to TMZ, was enough for a four-volume box set published in 2011.

“Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,” which delivered exactly what the title promised. A comic from 1980 showed a man on a fishing boat with a noticeably bent reel. “Are you going to reel in the fish?” his wife asks. “No,” he says, “I’m going to jump into the water and marry the gorgeous thing.”

or "Did you catch that fish?" "No, I talked it into to giving itself up."

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/al-jaffee-dies-intl-scli/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/10/arts/al-jaffee-dead.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/al-jaffee-dies-age-102-mad-magazine-cartoonist-fold-in/

 

[gmax137]

I saw this story earlier today . But wow, 102!

 

[Klystron]

I saw this story earlier today . But wow, 102!

IK. I read his NYTimes obit. Amazing early life. His father brought the young family from shetl in Central Europe to America. Then disillusioned (crazy) mother brought the kinder back to Europe in time for Nazism. Trade constant but veiled American antisemitism for full-blown rapacious pogroms. No wonder old Al envisioned monsters under every bed and sinister figures in each dark alley.

One of my favorite Al Jaffe cartoons not in MAD Magazine shows a nervous young man returning to his walkup apartment in some large city mid-20th Century. His sister accosts him as he enters home,

"Your cat is dead.", she says to her brother.

Near collapse, the boy exclaims, "No-o-o! Never break bad news that way! Say, 'Your cat is on the roof!', then tell me, 'Your cat is near the edge.', then gently say, 'I am so sorry, your cat fell off the roof and now abides in kitty heaven.'". The kid sighs, "Where's Mom?".

His sister replies, "Mom's on the roof.".

The kid faints dead away. The cartoonist pans back to show Mother hanging laundry on a rooftop clothesline, whistling through a bunch of wooden clothespins held in her mouth.

 

[mcastillo356]

I used to read Mad in Spanish. I loved the joke drawings at the left/right sides. I used to walk a little bit to buy it at a specialiced bookstore. Greetings!