Al Jaffee, King of the Mad Magazine Fold-In, Dies at 102

 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.

The news comes from the Twitter feed of Tom Heintjes, dedicated to Eisner Award winner Hogan's Alley. "I'm very sad to report that the great Al Jaffee has died," the tweet reads. "He had celebrated his 102nd birthday just last month. An incredible legend. RIP to a giant of cartooning." Along with being known for Mad Magazine, Al Jaffee also contributed to Timely Comics and Atlas Comics, which would eventually become the publishing juggernaut Marvel Comics. His longest-running Mad Magazine feature was the Fold-In, which featured a piece of artwork that had to be folded vertically and inward to reveal a new image. 

The First Fold-In appeared in MAD # 86!

PAUL COKER Jr. (1929-2022)

Recently, on July 23, cartoonist Paul Coker Jr., one of my favorite artists from the original MAD Magazine Usual Gang of Idiots, passed on.  The following is the article appearing in ANIMATION Magazine on the day of his passing:

Animation artist and illustrator Paul Coker Jr., best known for his character and production designs for the classic Rankin/Bass stop-motion specials as well as his long stint illustrating for MAD Magazine, died at home in Santa Fe, New Mexico on July 23 at age 93, after a brief illness. Coker’s stepdaughter, Lee Smithson Burd, confirmed his passing to Deadline and shared that the artist was “lucid and had his remarkable sense of humor until the end.”

Born March 5, 1929 in Lawrence, Kansas, Coker studied drawing and painting at the University of Kansas, and began his career designing greeting cards for Hallmark in the 1950s in Kansas City, Missouri. He became the Art Director for the company’s humorous “Contemporary Card” line.

His first work for MAD appeared in 1961, and he became established as one of the publication’s so-called “Usual Gang of Idiots.” He went on to illustrate over 375 articles for the humor rag, as well as a series of paperbacks starting in 1968.

Coker was known for his “Horrifying Clichés” panels and film/TV parody spoofs. He also collaborated with MAD writer Don Edwing on the Lancelot and Horace & Buggy comic strips. Coker freelanced for other publications, including Esquire, Good Housekeeping and Playboy. 

To generations of fans, however, Coker will be remembered as the artful hand that created beloved Rankin/Bass characters like Frosty the Snowman (from the 1969 2D special); Kris Kringle, Winter Warlock and Burgermeister Meisterburger (Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, 1970); and the wonderfully vaudevillian villains Snow Miser and Heat Miser (The Year without a Santa Claus).

                                       

For Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr.’s iconic studio, Coker also provided character designs for stop-motion specials Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971), Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July (1979) and The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye: The Emperor’s New Clothes (1972) as well as 2D specials and series like Festival of Family Classics and The Wacky World of Mother Goose. 

                                  

Coker lent his talents to to many of these titles as well, in addition to The First Easter Rabbit, Frosty’s Winter Wonderland, Rudolph’s Shiny New Year, Jack Frost, The Stingiest Man in Town and Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, to name a few. Coker continued working the the studio into the early 2000s, on the 2D TV movie Santa, Baby! He also provided character models for Cartoon Network’s Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? (2002).                          Coker is survived by his wife of 33 years, Rosemary Smithson, and stepdaughters Lee Smithson Burd and Carol Smithson.

MAD MAGAZINE ceases publishing.

                          MAD Magazine #95, from June 1965, the first Mad Magazine I ever read!

I was 14 years old when I read my first MAD Magazine. I became hooked instantly to its insane parodies and sarcastic brand of humor. My biggest idol was Mort Drucker and his spot-on caricatures. I also became a fan of Sergio Aragones, Don Martin, Jack Davis, Dick DeBartolo, Dave Berg, Joe Orlando, Wallace Wood, George Woodbridge, Paul Coker Jr., Jack Rickard, Angelo Torres, Al Jaffee and the rest of the Usual Gang of Idiots who contributed for the magazine up until the late nineties. My sense of humor was greatly influenced by all of them and I Iearned the craft of cartooning by studying their artwork.
It's sad to see the magazine disappear from the newsstands but I am not sorry to see it go as I had actually stopped reading it by 2005. The magazine ceased to be as sharp and funny as it originally was and none of the newer artists appealed to me as much as the older ones had.
For me, MAD Magazine had pretty much died as soon as the 21st century began.
Long Live MAD!