From Grokipedia
Full articleAbraham Jaffee (March 13, 1921 – April 10, 2023), professionally known as Al Jaffee, was an American cartoonist celebrated for his satirical illustrations in MAD magazine, particularly the invention of the Fold-In feature that appeared on the back cover of nearly every issue from 1964 onward. Born in Savannah, Georgia, to Lithuanian Jewish immigrant parents, Jaffee's family experienced upheaval when his mother returned with the children to Lithuania amid cultural clashes, prompting his return to the United States in the 1930s where he honed his artistic skills. His contributions to MAD spanned from 1955 to 2020, making him the publication's longest-serving artist and earning him the Guinness World Record for the longest career as a comics artist at 78 years. Jaffee also created features like "Tall Tales," a newspaper comic strip blending exaggeration and vertical panoramas, and received accolades including the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year in 2008. His work emphasized clever visual gags and social commentary, influencing generations of humorists without notable controversies, as his enduring output reflected consistent ingenuity rather than partisan agendas.
In brief
Jaffee's Fold-in was a physical joke: crease the page, change the meaning. Kids learned paper engineering from a satire magazine.
He kept working into his nineties, a professional wiseacre with a draftsman's patience. Serious people his age, he liked to say, were dead.
Photographs
Hero photograph: Wikimedia Commons
