Al Jaffee, iconoclastic cartooning legend of Mad Magazine fame, dies at 102
BY JESSICA GELT
LAMBIEK Comiclopedia
Al Jaffee, the iconoclastic cartoonist who created Mad Magazine’s most enduring feature — the Fold-In — and served as the publication’s longest-running contributor, died at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 102.
The cause was multiple-organ failure, his granddaughter Fani Thomson told the New York Times.
Jaffee’s illustrations first appeared in the legendary satiric magazine in 1955, shortly after it transitioned from a comic book to a magazine. In 1964, he created the “Fold-In,” a back-of-book feature that became an instant classic at a time when other magazines were championing the ubiquitous fold-out.
Jaffee’s idea involved folding a picture vertically inward to reveal a completely new image and caption. A fold-in from 1969 resulted in an image of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Linus folded in from a piece of abstract art. The caption read: “Modern Art has taken some pretty wild turns in recent years. But no matter which direction it takes, it seems to be headed more and more toward total incomprehensibility.”