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MORE AL JAFFEE THAN YOU NEED

Mad magazine was the equivalent of the Big Bang for American postwar humor. Mad taught people to question authority, to think for themselves, and to laugh at the absurdity and horror of life. The first 23 issues, which were in color and comic-book size, are in many people’s opinions the greatest comics ever made.

Al Jaffee is a true artist who’s led an amazing life. He invented the Mad Fold-in in 1964. He also worked with Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder on Harvey’s post-Mad attempts at humor magazines, as well as the Playboy comic Little Annie Fanny. At 88 he is still painting the Mad Fold-ins and illustrating a book that’s being written about his life. He is a shining example of what it means to be an artist. I’d say something snarky but I can’t. The guy’s just too great.

I never expected that I’d someday be welcomed into Al Jaffee’s studio for a lengthy interview about his life and opinions, but I was. And it was one of the greatest honors I’ve known.

Vice: Tell me about how you met Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder.
Al Jaffee: I met Willy when we were the same age, around 13 or so. We lived far apart, but when we got accepted to the School of Music and Art our families moved within a few blocks of each other. We became lifelong friends. When we were in junior high school they tried to get us to decide what kind of high school we wanted to go to and nothing appealed to us. The choices were an academic high school, an industrial high school, or an occupational high school. We didn’t like any of those. We had been drawing since we were little kids, and we wanted to do something in art. One day we got pulled out of our classes and sent up to an art room with 50 kids and given paper and pencil and told to draw something. I was sitting right behind Willy and I looked over his shoulder and was amazed. For a 12-year-old kid, that was a piece of fantastic work.

I’m familiar with that drawing. It’s reproduced in the book The Mad Playboy of Art. It makes me think that the ability to learn how to draw is something you’re born with. I went to art school and most people left my school not being able to draw as well as Will Elder at age 12. Were you as talented at Will Elder at 12?
I don’t think I was as good as Willy, but he could draw his entire family realistically. I was a cartoonist. Once I got into the High School of Music and Art and had to take figure-drawing classes, I caught up, but we were more interested in funny stuff.

Even Will Elder’s horror comics are funny.
We got in trouble because they looked down on cartooning at the High School of Music and Art. I remember when Willy came in one day after seeing Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. He fell in love with the animation—we all did. It was like magic. Will drew the whole set of dwarves and beautifully colored them. He was still only about 14. He rendered them in the same way Little Annie Fanny was rendered. He was showing it to the rest of us and an art teacher came over and looked at it and was furious. “Never ever bring junk like that into an art school!” A little on the stuffy side, I think. Art is art. Willy was a natural-born talent. I do believe talent is something you’re born with.

I don’t know if I believe in talent. I think some people are able to learn and some aren’t. My main educational push came from getting yelled at to look harder, slow down, and draw more often.
I agree. You can’t crack a whip at someone who doesn’t have basic art talent and expect them to learn to draw. I knew musicians at the School of Music and Art whose mothers had made them play the piano since they were four and they were good enough to get into the school but they had no real chance. A lot of them became very proficient but mechanical. They became dentists and lawyers and enjoyed music as a hobby. Not everyone can be great. I might be prejudiced since I’ve been lucky.

What were you reading then?
I had a checkered career as far as growing up is concerned. When I was six years old I was taken to a very small village in Lithuania. There was no reading matter. My father, who remained in the US, would save up all the Sunday and daily comic strips and every six months or so he’d mail us a roll of all the comics, six inches in diameter. My brother Harry, who was a very good artist, would sit for months and read them over and over again. We learned how to read on our own by doing that.

My friend’s father grew up shoeless in Puerto Rico and learned English from reading comics.
This is why I was furious with Dr. Fredric Wertham, who condemned comics. And many educators followed him. The best way to teach kids how to read is to let them read what they enjoy. Lots of kids from very poor neighborhoods learned from comics because they resisted the normal schoolbooks.

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Comments

	blickblondhi, on Jul 24, 2009 wrote: this interview was inspiring. i’m definitely going to read the book. and man, i need to get my hands on some mad fold-ins. my mom wouldn’t let me get mad as a kid so i’d fold ’em and fuck ’em up at the store!
	blickblondhi, on Jul 24, 2009 wrote: sure you’re important. just never abandon your sensibilities and you’ll always be important.
Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2009 wrote: his dad saved him from the nazis and he became one of the best comic writers ever. that’s so awesome.
Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2009 wrote: will elder as a 12-year-old comic prodigy. yeah, i’d believe it
Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2009 wrote: 88 and he is still this cool
Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2009 wrote: he has such a fascinating life...people who have lives like this make me feel so unimportant
Anonymous, on Jul 21, 2009 wrote: i never really understood what mad was growing up in the scotland, i had heard of it but didnt realize that it was such a big deal.
Anonymous, on Jul 21, 2009 wrote: wow that is pretty crazy about his mother delaying to come over, i reckon the book of his life will be awesome.
	badmandan, on Jul 21, 2009 wrote: he looks like the granpa that i wish that i could have had. plus he would have had loads of cool crap to play wiith.
Anonymous, on Jul 21, 2009 wrote: this guy makes me feel talentless
Anonymous, on Jul 21, 2009 wrote: i believe in talent. some people don’t have it. people like me.
Anonymous, on Jul 21, 2009 wrote: Mad was my first exposure to comics or anything remotely funny put to paper. It was the highlight of visiting my grandparents’ house. I would fold and refold the fold ins until the paper would tear from being folded so much.
	turd to your mother, on Jul 21, 2009 wrote: YES!!!!!!!!!
Anonymous, on Jul 21, 2009 wrote: that teacher was an idiot
Anonymous, on Jul 21, 2009 wrote: i’m defintely gonna read that book
Anonymous, on Jul 21, 2009 wrote: what a cool dude