Al Jaffee turns 100, and Mad magazine salutes its legendary artist

I have so much nostalgia for things like print magazines. "Mad" was great when I was young. Maybe I wouldn't enjoy it much anymore - it feels like the endless onslaught of memes and webcomics fill this slot for me.

And yet, print magazines are still available. I will pick up a new issue of "2600" every once in a great while if I'm at a B&N and it catches my eye.

Congratulations to Jaffee, and to "Mad".

I feel like Mad was great when Donald Knuth was contributing to it, but had begun to lose its touch when I got around to reading it. I thought it was hilarious at the time, but... I was 12 and the humor was ostensibly adult. Or rather it was old hippie humor from people who didn't understand social currents that arose since the 1960s, like video games and hip-hop... and didn't want to.

Mad was at its best when doing pure gags and things like Snappy Answersto Stupid Questions and Spy vs Spy. And Al Jaffee was one of its funnier artists. I loved the Fold-Ins in particular, and they inspired me to design my own.