Posts Tagged ‘al jaffee’

I remember getting the Mad Magazine. I enjoyed all it had to offer from the cover of Alfred E. Neumann incorporated into the pop cover, to the fold up in back. It was and still is a great magazine.

One thing that I enjoyed more was the comics. Spy vs. Spy, Don Martin (He has a Shrine, you know), but just as important was Al Jaffee. He brought a lot of sarcasm to his strips with “Snappy Answers for Stupid Questions”. For instance, you might see someone at the computer and another ask the question:

“Are you on Dorkazine.com”

The reply would be a trifecta – like:

“No, I am on ebay buying an expensive car”

“No, my pants are on fire and I am looking online for the proceedure to ‘Stop, Drop and Roll’”

“No, I thought this was the microwave. Hopefully my Burrito is done…”

On a daily basis, Bitstrips offers a remix challenge: Write a good caption to the bitstrips comic. It was a street bum with piles of money. This inspired me to do an Al Jaffee tribute. So enjoy this Snappy answer to a stupid question.

I used to read MAD Magazine all the time. There are so many great things about it. The parodies, Sergio Aragones, Spy vs. Spy, The cool inserts and extra comics.

But the one thing that really made MAD magazine stand out was the last page. Al Jaffee took a rather mundane drawing and made you turn it into something special. You would see a page with a caption on top. The caption would be missing the ‘punchline’, so to get it, you would have to fold the page into itself. The end result would be a humorous look at the same picture.

There have been a lot of fold-ins over the years. And now you can see them all again. The New York Times published a great Flash Animation that highlights some of the fold-ins that Jaffee created. You just place the mouse over the right side of the page and drag to the left to reveal the hidden caption.

Check out the New York Times Article, then go to the official MAD Magazine site. Relive your childhood days – that is unless your a child, then pick up a magazine and see what we mean.

Alfred E. Neuman for President!