MORE AL JAFFEE THAN YOU NEED

Mad Mad Mad Mad Playboy Little Annie Fanny Mad Vice: Tell me about how you met Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder.
Al Jaffee: I’m familiar with that drawing. It’s reproduced in the book The Mad Playboy of Art. It makes me think that the ability to learn how to draw is something you’re born with. I went to art school and most people left my school not being able to draw as well as Will Elder at age 12. Were you as talented at Will Elder at 12?

 

Even Will Elder’s horror comics are funny. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Little Annie Fanny I don’t know if I believe in talent. I think some people are able to learn and some aren’t. My main educational push came from getting yelled at to look harder, slow down, and draw more often. What were you reading then?
My friend’s father grew up shoeless in Puerto Rico and learned English from reading comics.

Early submission to Military Comics, courtesy of Al Jaffee

When and how did you come to America?
Oh my God.
Do you remember moving?
Where were you living?
Al Jaffee’s Mad Life Why are most of the early comic artists Jewish?
What was Bill Gaines like?
Mad Mad Mad Growing up in the Bronx, were you a fan of the Yankees? And yet you’re able to understand it better than most!
Tom Wolfe always said that he tried to write about things with a man-from-Mars perspective.
Mad Military Comics I love this.