Al Jaffee’s MAD Life

“Is this a follow-up post about Al Jaffee?”
“No, it’s my grocery list. The internet will publish anything.”

In an earlier post about MAD Magazine‘s Al Jaffee, I reprinted a biographical piece he’d written in the early 1960s.

Jaffee wrote that he spent 6 years in Lithuania as a child with his Mom. His Dad stayed in the US but dutifully mailed Al’s beloved comic strips to him overseas. The story sounded like a fascinating morsel and I wanted to know more. And there is more. A lot more and it reads like a page-turning thriller.

Danny Fingeroth, the Senior VP of Education at MoCCA, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York, sent me a note about the post and told me about Al’s upcoming biography, Al Jaffee’s MAD Life. The book, written by Mary Lou Weisman, “covers the story of his chilling six years in Lithuania with his mother (as well as the rest of his life and career, of course),” says Fingeroth. And what a life that was (and still is, fortunately).

Click to continue reading Al Jaffee’s MAD Life

Al Jaffee: Tall Tales, MAD Magazine & Mocca

“Is this a blog post about Al Jaffee?”
“No, it’s about Harvey Kurtzman. I just can’t spell.”

Al Jaffee, the creator of the classic Fold-In for MAD Magazine, as well as “Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions,” has a style that’s all his own. Goofy, buoyant and bouncy, you can enjoy his work even before you get to the gag.

From 1957-1963, he had a syndicated comic strip called Tall Tales that’s one of those classic strips that’s recently been rediscovered and thank goodness for that. Jaffee, a Reuben Award winner, is also getting his own exhibit at Mocca, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, in New York City. Titled “Is This The Al Jaffee Art Exhibit?” the show will debut later this fall.

Continuing my series on cartooning and cartoonists, Jaffee wrote about himself and his work back in 1964. This is pulled from an oversized saddle-stitched magazine from Allied Publications with the creatively-challenged title These Top Cartoonists Tell How They Create America’s Favorite Comics. It featured an introduction by Beetle Bailey’s Mort Walker and was compiled by Allen Willette.

Here’s Al on Jaffee and Tall Tales:

Click to continue reading Al Jaffee: Tall Tales, MAD Magazine & Mocca

1.13.09 - Tuesday Preview

Welcome to what I hope will be a series of Tuesday previews to let you know what to look forward to on comic day.

Tomorrow, Amazing Spider-Man 583 comes out with a variant cover and a five-page Obama back-up story. The variant cover is a one of fifty so, as usual, I didn’t get any. And, as usual, I have people coming out of the woodwork to buy it. Luckily Marvel is coming to my rescue by issuing a second printing variant next week and I will have plenty. Of course what this does to the resale value of the original variant is anyone’s guess.
 
X-men Manifest Destiny should be here tomorrow to make up for the screw up of last week. Those miscover books were up immediately on E-Bay, but they tell me the real book will be free to me to make up for it, but as they are not on my invoice I won’t know until they get here. Destiny?

Also appearing is Adam, Legend of the Blue Marvel 3 and the first two have been pretty good.

On the other hand, there is Death Defying Devil which is part of Project Super Powers. They could call it Hard to Read Devil because the entire series makes it difficult to follow this storyline, but we’ll give it another try.

Final Crisis 6. What can I say? When Final Bar Mitzvah comes out I will comment.

And last but not least is Mad Magazine. I know everyone thinks I am old and senile (Thanks Dennis; ED: No problem, buddy.  Hahaha.), but compared to the past Mad this is horrible and not funny. Pick up a few Mad trades if you don’t believe me.

And to cap everything off we have Obama trading cards. Now I once asked a distributor why cards don’t come out before the movie opens? It would be great to sell cards before an anticipated hit (Iron Man) or bomb (The Spirit) comes out, but I was informed that movie cards contain scenes from the movie so they don’t want to give away spoilers. But folks only buy the cards for the inserts anyway. Bikini swatches and kiss cards from Benchwarmers and costume cards and autographs from Iron Man are big hits. They say there are inserts in these cards and I am wondering what they are.

That’s all for this preview. Tune in next Tuesday for our hopefully second installment.