Savannah SEQA Icon Recently Passes – A Tribute to Al Jaffee

A devastating occurrence for the comic book community happened recently, as talented cartoonist Allan “Al” Jaffee passed away on April 10th, 2023. Jaffee was an icon born in Savannah, Georgia and holds the Guinness World Record for having the longest running career as a comic artist after 78 years of dedication to sequential arts. While he did freelance work and collaborated on a couple different books, such as Humbug by Harvey Kurtzman, his main work came from Mad Magazines, the iconic company that really shot his work into full flight. 

Jaffee’s work was often made rather to make statements about society, or simply to make people laugh. His loose, quick style gives a sense of fun and silliness- never taking himself too seriously. Series he made such as Some Useful Mad Gadgets seen below incorporated witty writing with simplistic visuals, making his art full of clever meaning yet easy for anyone of many different reading levels to understand and enjoy. Jaffee occasionally used simple coloring like in this Mad magazine cover, which he conceptualized and Sam Viviano drew. The usage of primary colors in the composition above maintains the classical comic feel despite this edition being published in 2020.

Perhaps one of Jaffee’s most recognizable creations, though,would be his fold-in pages that were first introduced to Mad magazines in 1964. He started Mad’s iconic fold-ins, and continues to create them all the way until 2020, or in other words, for 56 years. The art form of these ranged from fairly realistic to extremely stylized, but always bore the same clever formatting of having one composition when you hold the page normally, and a different one when you fold the pages together, the folded version often being a reaction to the original one. 

Another notable series that Jaffee did with Mad, was Mad’s Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. These were monochrome, one-panel comic strips that act as ‘fill in the blank’ style jokes displaying random situations with some sort of question, and a list of humorous phrases to answer it. This series got its own book in 1968 titled Mad’s Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, but frequently appeared in Mad Magazine’s as an ongoing gag.

Jaffee’s career ended when he was 99 years old, in which Mad released a special edition (Mad #14) that was filled with his most memorable works to celebrate his retirement. He lived on for 4 more years until recently, at age 103, he unfortunately passed away- leaving behind a legacy of smiles for generations of readers to forever cherish. 

“ Al is a national treasure. It’s a shame he had to retire after only about 78 years of working professionally… I think he was just starting to get the hang of it. “ 

– Tom Richmond, 2020 Richmond Illustration Inc. (tomrichmond.com) 

While Al Jaffee has left us, the impact he made never will. He was entirely unique, and inspired people from all across the world to pursue their dreams of being a comic artist. The main studio he produced for, Mad, has already published a tribute in which a handful of the staff talked about what he meant to them. He was not just a great artist, but a great man who was born to lighten dark times and inspire others to do the same. Al Jaffee was an incredible figure to his hometown Savannah, and sequential art students aspiring to make this world a happier place. He will forever be remembered an iconic individual, loved by many far and wide.

The HoneyDripper is the Savannah College of Art and Design’s juried comics and illustration blog, dedicated to publishing, promoting, and showcasing the finest in student work.​