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Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died

nytimes.com

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Re: Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died

#41

Post by salgernon »

DonHopkins wrote: post #6
singeezie wrote: post #5

Wow. Respect for the guy with the longest career ever as a comics artist, think over 70 years in the game. He began his career in the comic book industry in the 1940s, working for publishers such as Timely Comics (which later became Marvel Comics) and DC Comics. Jaffee began working for Mad magazine in 1955, and over the years, he became one of the most influential contributors to the magazine. He created the famous…

"You fold it, you bought it!" -Jeff Albertson "Those magazines create a dangerous amount of laughter." -Marge Simpson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG_f0_jfHRU "Wow. I'll never wash these eyes again." -Bart Simpson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjlDDZkGONs "Not Mad! That's our nation's largest mental illness themed humor magazine!" -Homer Simpson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zghcvq-pL7A "So, we meet again, Mad…

“(/usr/ucb/mail -s ‘Pizza Order’ ‘pizza-server@poit.eng.sun.com’)”

I had just paged that most useless piece of trivia in, but “poit” was from a Don Martin cartoon in Mad, not Al Jaffee.

Nevertheless, Excelsior!

Re: Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died

#42

Post by kstrauser »

xxr wrote: post #26
kstrauser wrote: post #24

I'd have a hard time exaggerating Mad Magazine's influence on my young mind. In particular, their cynical take on advertising pretty much is my view of it. For instance, if I see something like "'Hot New Game' is 'a thrill ride'", I assume they lopped off "...for kindergartners who scare too easily". I love ya, Mad gang. Thank you for sneakily teaching this kid some critical thinking.

Yep—once a month when an issue came in the mail, it was like a bomb went off

I could never talk my parents into a subscription, but the grocery story had the magazine a glorious rack full of their books.

Re: Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died

#43

Post by drukenemo »

Saw his work also in Mad Brazil, which was a magazine mixing American and Brazilian artists. I grew up with Mad and still have a huge vintage collection.

I wonder if Mad also existed in other countries with local artists and language.

RIP Al Jaffee

Edit: found this https://madtrash.com/brazilian-mad/

Re: Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died

#44

Post by low_tech_love »

nkozyra wrote: post #33
kstrauser wrote: post #24

I'd have a hard time exaggerating Mad Magazine's influence on my young mind. In particular, their cynical take on advertising pretty much is my view of it. For instance, if I see something like "'Hot New Game' is 'a thrill ride'", I assume they lopped off "...for kindergartners who scare too easily". I love ya, Mad gang. Thank you for sneakily teaching this kid some critical thinking.

I think it falls in that category of stuff meant for kids but not dumbed down for kids. This tends to be the absolute best content for young readers, because we all feel like we're hanging with the adults. Even better, with the funny and/or smart adults. It tends to elevate young people because that's when we're most desperate to be older/cooler/smarter/funnier. Despite this being a huge part of a lot of people's liv…

I’m not sure something like that is even possible anymore. Everything needs to be heavily advertised everywhere all at once, and there are too many channels for that where people are constantly connected to. It’s all too competitive and if it doesn’t have a global reach, it’s a failure. Also, everything is constantly scrutinized; what you described would nowadays be quickly considered as being snobby and/or stuck up and insensitive to those who didn’t get the joke, or who couldn’t access it for whatever reason, or with limited brain power, or anything like that. I bet there would also be at least a couple of people who would say it’s not appropriate for children and would try to (in one way or another) bring down those who let the children have it. In other words, the world today has too much entropy for that to happen.

Re: Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died

#45

Post by jamesfinlayson »

drukenemo wrote: post #43

Saw his work also in Mad Brazil, which was a magazine mixing American and Brazilian artists. I grew up with Mad and still have a huge vintage collection. I wonder if Mad also existed in other countries with local artists and language. RIP Al Jaffee Edit: found this https://madtrash.com/brazilian-mad/

I think Australian Mad Magazine was lot of the American content with some local stuff mixed in (not sure who did the art for the local stuff - locals I assume but it seemed to match the style well enough from what I remember).

Re: Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died

#46

Post by WalterBright »

nkozyra wrote: post #33
kstrauser wrote: post #24

I'd have a hard time exaggerating Mad Magazine's influence on my young mind. In particular, their cynical take on advertising pretty much is my view of it. For instance, if I see something like "'Hot New Game' is 'a thrill ride'", I assume they lopped off "...for kindergartners who scare too easily". I love ya, Mad gang. Thank you for sneakily teaching this kid some critical thinking.

I think it falls in that category of stuff meant for kids but not dumbed down for kids. This tends to be the absolute best content for young readers, because we all feel like we're hanging with the adults. Even better, with the funny and/or smart adults. It tends to elevate young people because that's when we're most desperate to be older/cooler/smarter/funnier. Despite this being a huge part of a lot of people's liv…

> I don't know what the modern equivalent is

Sponge Bob in its first season. I thought it was a dumb kids cartoon, until I inadvertently watched an episode. The humor in it worked on many levels, there was the kid's humor, with a wicked overlay of adult humor on top.

I recall one where SB and friends were out on a fishing boat. The name of the boat was painted on the prow. The framing of the shot cut off the first couple of letters, and adults would assume the missing letters formed a very rude remark. A later full frame shot with the missing letters spelled something innocuous. Sponge Bob is full of jokes like that.

The later seasons, however, are about as clever as a brick.

Re: Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died

#47

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #46
nkozyra wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it falls in that category of stuff meant for kids but not dumbed down for kids. This tends to be the absolute best content for young readers, because we all feel like we're hanging with the adults. Even better, with the funny and/or smart adults. It tends to elevate young people because that's when we're most desperate to be older/cooler/smarter/funnier. Despite this being a huge part of a lot of people's liv…

> I don't know what the modern equivalent is Sponge Bob in its first season. I thought it was a dumb kids cartoon, until I inadvertently watched an episode. The humor in it worked on many levels, there was the kid's humor, with a wicked overlay of adult humor on top. I recall one where SB and friends were out on a fishing boat. The name of the boat was painted on the prow. The framing of the shot cut off the first co…

An older cartoon with the same idea is Rocky & Bullwinkle. They had the slapstick for the kids, and sly satire for the adults.

For example, one plot centered around a pond named Veronica Lake. (Veronica Lake was a film star renowned for being sultry.) Someone asked where the boys were at some point, and the reply was "they are playing in Veronica Lake." I always wondered how that got past the censors.

Re: Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died

#49

Post by euroderf »

bombcar wrote: post #25
PostOnce wrote: post #21

I moved to the other side of the world 8,000miles / 13,000km away. So I go into the public library and pick up a MAD Magazine one morning, and there in the letters section is my old GP from back home, writing in that he's been reading MAD since he was a kid. Small world.

Donald Knuth’s first published work was published in Mad Magazine - https://silezukuk.tumblr.com/post/616657913 He lists it as his first published paper: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/vita.pdf So the arguably most reknown computer scientist of all time got his start in Mad Magazine.

Wasn't "gzorp" a Mad-ism too ? And no doubt forgetting many others...

Re: Al Jaffee, king of the Mad Magazine fold-in, has died

#50

Post by vintermann »

drukenemo wrote: post #43

Saw his work also in Mad Brazil, which was a magazine mixing American and Brazilian artists. I grew up with Mad and still have a huge vintage collection. I wonder if Mad also existed in other countries with local artists and language. RIP Al Jaffee Edit: found this https://madtrash.com/brazilian-mad/

Yes, there were local versions! Sverre Helmer Christensen was a notorious Danish underground comic artist who I know got published in Norwegian MAD. My parents were friends of his parents, and I remember they bought that issue. I remember his parents as a mild-mannered couple, and I wonder how their oldest son turned out to be such an outrageous shock artist. Not that it appeared to phase them at all, they were very proud of him.

Sadly Sverre died of leukaemia at the age of 30, but I recently learned he was the main inspiration for my favourite current Norwegian underground comics artist, Jens K. Styve.

I think that of the different comics traditions that came out of the USA, MAD was one of the greatest and most influential outside it. It was also itself a lot more internationally inclined than the others. They knew and loved the Latin American newspaper comic tradition, and the French comic traditions, at a time when those weren't on many Americans' radars.

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