R.I.P. Al Jaffee

There goes a very funny man. When I was 13 I liked to read books about mathematical physics and MAD Magazine. And Al Jaffee likely was the most proficient and comprehensive of the MAD artists. MAD does not exist anymore and most of the Usual Gang of Idiots are deceased. But it was a significant cultural phenomenon and one of the best things to happen in the last century. Only a very sophisticated and reflected culture can achieve such a thing. German MAD probably was even better than the American original, thanks to the congenial supervision by Herbert Feuerstein, who died in 2020. This is now gone, alongside a cultural peak that will probably not happen again anywhere soon, a romantic memory remains, nostalgia, lest we forget. Working at MAD magazine in the 1960s or 1970s must have been very funny. When I was 13 I wanted to become a cartoonist or a physicist. Both things did not work out, due to lack of mathematical and artistic talent, running out of ideas at that time, switching to other topics and finding both cartoons and physics as too unimportant to permanently stick to. Al Jaffee made a wiser career choice. I like iconoclasts. Thank you, Al Jaffee.

Al Jaffee, Mad Magazine cartooning legend, dies at 102 – Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)