Al Jaffee death: Mad magazine cartoonist dead at 102

Al Jaffee, Mad magazine's award-winning cartoonist has died at the age of 102.

Throughout his career, the cartoonist delighted millions of kids with the sneaky fun of the “Fold-In” and the snark of Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.

Jaffee died on Monday (10 April) in Manhattan from multiple organ failures, according to his granddaughter, Fani Thomson. He had retired at the age of 99.

Mad magazine, with its wry, sometimes pointed send-ups of politics and culture, was essential reading for teens and preteens during the baby-boom era and inspiration for countless future comedians.

For decades, virtually every issue featured new material by Jaffee. His collected "Fold-Ins," taking on everyone in his unmistakably broad visual style from the Beatles to TMZ, was enough for a four-volume box set published in 2011.

Readers savoured his Fold-Ins like dessert, turning to them on the inside back cover after looking through such other favorites as Don Martin's Spy vs Spy and Dave Berg's The Lighter Side.

The premise, originally a spoof of the old Sports Illustrated and Playboy magazine foldouts, was that you started with a full-page drawing and question on top, folded two designated points toward the middle, and produced a new and surprising image, along with the answer.

The Fold-In was supposed to be a one-time gag, tried out in 1964 when Jaffee satirised the biggest celebrity news of the time: Elizabeth Taylor dumping her husband, Eddie Fisher, in favour of "Cleopatra" co-star Richard Burton. Jaffee first showed Taylor and Burton arm in arm on one side of the picture, and on the opposite side a young, handsome man being held back by a policeman.

Fold the picture in and Taylor and the young man are kissing.

The idea was so popular that Mad editor Al Feldstein wanted a follow-up. Jaffee devised a picture of 1964 GOP presidential contenders Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater that, when collapsed, became an image of Richard Nixon.

"That one really set the tone for what the cleverness of the Fold-Ins has to be," Jaffee told the Boston Phoenix in 2010. "It couldn't just be bringing someone from the left to kiss someone on the right.”

Jaffee was also known for Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, which delivered exactly what the title promised. A comic from 1980 showed a man on a fishing boat with a noticeably bent reel. “Are you going to reel in the fish?” his wife asks. “No,” he says, “I’m going to jump into the water and marry the gorgeous thing.”

Jaffee didn’t just satirise the culture; he helped change it. His parodies of advertisements included such future real-life products as automatic redialing for a telephone, a computer spell checker, and graffiti-proof surfaces. He also anticipated peelable stamps, multiblade razors, and self-extinguishing cigarettes.

The cartoonist received numerous awards, and in 2013 was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame.

In 2010, he contributed illustrations to Mary-Lou Weisman's Al Jaffee's Mad Life: A Biography. The following year, Chronicle Books published The MAD Fold-In Collection: 1964-2010.

Jaffee had a long career before Mad.

He drew for Timely Comics, which became Marvel Comics; and for several years sketched the Tall Tales panel for the New York Herald Tribune.

Jaffee first contributed to Mad in the mid-1950s. He left when Harvey Kurtzman quit the magazine, but came back in 1964.

Additional reporting from agencies