It's Friday the 13th but it's also the 99th birthday of the longest-serving of The Usual Gang of Idiots in MAD magazine and one of the most beloved cartoonists in the world. Abraham "Al" Jaffee was born on March 13, 1921 and he began drawing comic books in 1941. He made his MAD debut in #25 (September, 1955) when he wrote an article entitled, "Baseball…Science or Skill?" for then-editor Harvey Kurtzman.
A few months later when Kurtzman left MAD to do a magazine for Hugh Hefner, Al went with him and didn't return to the pages of MAD until late 1958. He was in almost every issue thereafter, sometimes as a writer, sometimes as an artist, most often as a writer-artist. And in 1964, he originated the MAD Fold-In, which quickly became one of the essential components of almost every issue since. Only recently did he stop doing them and passed the job on to another artist.
Al is one of those wonderful cartoonists who is also a wonderful human being. Everybody who knows the guy loves the guy. Everybody who doesn't know the guy would love the guy if they knew the guy. Happy 99, Al. Hope you enjoy being middle-aged.