I was remiss in my blogging duties to not note the recent 85th birthday of MAD Magazine's Al Jaffee. He was born 3/13/21 but is still producing the monthly MAD Fold-In feature, which he's been doing for the magazine since 1964 with only the occasional month off.
Jaffee, according to the definitive book on people who've drawn for that silly publication, began his comic book career in 1941 at Quality Comics. He later became a writer-editor and occasional artist for Timely Comics and soon segued into a close relationship with Harvey Kurtzman, which led to him participating in some of Kurtzman's last issues of MAD as well as several post-MAD projects. It also led to him working for Kurtzman's successor at MAD, Al Feldstein, and becoming a mainstay of the magazine, first as a writer and later as a writer-artist. Along with the fold-in, he created the recurring feature, "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions," which David Letterman has (actually) cited as a fine summation of all he does for a living.
Al is also a wonderful gentleman who loves to talk about comics and Mad and just about anything else. He is much loved by his colleagues and, of course, his readers too. And probably other people, as well, now that I think of it. It's hard not to like Al Jaffee, which is why no one's ever tried it.
Fortunately, though I forgot the guy's birthday, Stephen Colbert didn't. He did a nice little tribute to Al at the end of Monday night's The Colbert Report. He even displayed a cake decorated to read "Al…you have repeatedly shown artistry & care of great credit to your field. Love, Stephen Colbert."
Of course, when you remove the center section and push the left and right pieces together, it says something else.