The artist behind the magazine’s famous “fold-in” drawing, Jaffee was Mad’s longest-tenured contributor and only retired when he was 99
Al Jaffee, the pioneering Mad magazine cartoonist and inventor of the “fold-in” who worked for the publication for seven decades and retired when he was 99 years old, has died at the age of 102.
Born Abraham Jaffee in 1921 in Atlanta, Jaffee began working in comics soon after graduating high school. At just 20 he sold a parody of Superman, titled Inferior Man, to comic heavyweight Will Eisner, and a year later began working for soon-to-be Marvel titan Stan Lee. He began going by the name Al during the second world war, as a way to protect himself from antisemitism. During the war, he worked at the Pentagon, making pamphlets and posters for the war effort.
“When I was done, I called up the producer who’d contacted me, and I said, ‘I’ve finished the fold-in, where shall I send it?’ And he said – and this was a great compliment – ‘Oh, please Mr Jaffee, could you deliver it in person? The whole crew wants to meet you,’” Jaffee told the Boston Phoenix. When he retired in 2020, at 99, he was the magazine’s longest-tenured contributor. He was a freelancer for his whole life, and never became a staff member. Towards the end, he mainly worked on fold-ins, each of which took him roughly two weeks of work.the New York Times on his retirement. “One of them was to make a living. The second one was to entertain. I hope to some extent that I succeeded.”
Jaffee is survived by his children, Richard and Debora; two stepdaughters, Tracey and Jody; as well as five grandchildren, a step-granddaughter and three great-grandchildren.
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