True to form, Mad Magazine’s oldest and most prolific contributor, Al Jaffee, began his speaking event on Wednesday in 501 Schermerhorn with a bit of irreverent humor. “I wouldn’t say I had a specialty for poking fun,” the 88-year old cartoonist said of his early days drawing comics, living panel to panel and paycheck to paycheck in a still-Depression-stricken New York. “A specialty for paying rent is what I had.” It’s that same self-effacing, sarcastic wit, tinged with a healthy dose of slapstick, that has informed the inexhaustible 70 years of Jaffee’s artistic career and installed him securely within the pantheon of American comedic geniuses.
Jaffee was speaking with a fellow cartoonist, the comparably infantile Danny Fingeroth˜. Both were invited to campus by Columbia’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies for an evening of wisecracks and reminiscences suitably titled “Al Jaffee’s Mad Life.” Jaffee has published material in all but one issue of Mad Magazine since 1964 and has become famous as the mastermind behind much of its roaring cartoons, biting wit, and oft-imitated but never duplicated Mad Fold-Ins. It’s safe to say the magazine wouldn’t be mad without him.
Tossing snide remarks back and forth with Fingeroth, the smart aleck editor of many Spider-Man titles, Jaffee caught every gibe that came his way and paid each one back in full. 70 years in the comic book industry have done nothing to dull his still razor-sharp wit—and as he proved, he has a faultless memory to match. Jaffee entertained a full auditorium with tales stretching all the way back to his earliest days as a cartoonist in the late ’30s. “Honestly, none of us knew what to do for ourselves,” he said, referring to his angst upon graduating from the newly established LaGuardia High School of Music and Art. “There was still a lot of prejudice [towards Jews] in those days … but then came the comic industry”—created to a large extent by Jews—“and that’s where I found my opening.”
Jaffee went down the oddball catalog of his pre-Mad artistic creations, starting with Inferior Man—his flippant rip-off of Superman, who, far from tackling the forces of evil, faces everyday problems like not being able to fight crime because his costume is at the cleaners. Jaffee’s taste for irony and sharp eye for the foolishness of respected icons is what so endeared him to Mad and, in turn, shaped the magazine’s own mischievous sensibility. He recalled to his audience the audacity of the magazine in its early days, “This was the time of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, McCarthyism … and here comes this cheap rag making fun of institutions, government, advertising, art … itself! And marketed towards kids and teenagers—it was rebelliousness incarnate.”
Jaffee is doing his part to keep that audacity alive, by contributing his artwork and wit to every issue of Mad published. At the end of the event he was recognized for his work with the Harvey Kurtzman Award for Best Cartoonist of 2009. As I and a number of others in the audience agreed, it’s impossible to imagine the future of Mad Magazine without him.
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