Al Jaffee, New York City, 2017

Al Jaffee, New York City, 2017

Mad Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee turned 100 years old in 2021.

Jaffee’s wit and lampoonery warped my boyhood brain and turned it inside out — it also taught me a few things in the process.

His career started in 1942 when he went to work for Joker Comics and by 1955 he began his more than half-century stint at that beacon of satire and bad taste, Mad Magazine.

Jaffee retired in 2020 at age 99 having worked in nine different decades, officially becoming the longest working comic artist in history.

His ‘Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions’ had a ridiculous amount of influence on my modus operandi and worldview. He wasn’t just a great cartoonist but a great writer as well who managed to stay at the top of his game for an incredibly long time.

I photographed Jaffee in his Manhattan studio in 2017.

Archival pigment print on baryta 315 gsm, acid-free, 100% cotton-fiber paper.

Signed on recto by photographer Jim Herrington.

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All photos and text © 2025 Jim Herrington

www.jimherrington.com

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