NI Bheidh a Leithead Aris Ann, We Shall Not See His like Again

Al Jaffee, the creator of the Mad Magazine fold-in and Reuben Award winning cartoonist, has died at 102.

Not only is a bummer, I remember my days as a pre-adolescent reading and enjoying the publication, but I also think that it was a not so subtle incitement to a subversive way of thinking.

Oddly enough, the fold-ins were arguably one of the most straightforward bits of advocacy in the magazine.

I'm probably dating myself, but it's not like anyone else will:

Al Jaffee, a cartoonist who folded in when the trend in magazine publishing was to fold out, thereby creating one of Mad magazine’s most recognizable and enduring features, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 102.

His death, at a hospital, was caused by multi-system organ failure, his granddaughter Fani Thomson said.

It was in 1964 that Mr. Jaffee created the Mad Fold-In, an illustration-with-text feature on the inside of the magazine’s back cover that seemed at first glance to deliver a straightforward message. When the page was folded in thirds, however, both illustration and text were transformed into something entirely different and unexpected, often with a liberal-leaning or authority-defying message.

For instance, the fold-in from the November 2001 issue asked, “What mind-altering experience is leaving more and more people out of touch with reality?” The unfolded illustration showed a crowd of people popping and snorting various substances. But when folded, the image transformed into the Fox News anchor desk. 

Jaffee, and William Gaines, and the rest of that scurvy lot, managed to make subversion entertaining, as opposed to today's so-called subversion who seem to think that subversion is just theater.