99

by


I bought this book sometime in the very early 1980s, and I remember taking some time to save up enough money to pay that remarkably high $3.95 cover price, which was like, what, six, seven, eight times the cover price of the monthly Mad. I was fascinated at the time by the very idea of this oversized squarebound collection, so much larger than the other Mad paperbacks I would occasionally acquire.

And once I had it in my hands…frankly, when I pulled it off my shelf to scan that picture above, I was surprised it was in as good a shape as it was. By all rights it should have been in tatters, I read it so often. It’s such a great compilation of the variety of Al Jaffee’s output for Mad over the years, with parodies and weird inventions and his Snappy Comebacks to Stupid Questions…he’s synonymous with the Fold-In, but he did so much more.

Jaffee is 99 years old today. He is purt’near the very definition of a living legend and I’m glad he’s still around and able to see how much everyone loves his amazing work, both old and new. I follow his Instagram and there’s almost always something delightful going on there.

And I’m very happy I get to have my 51st birthday on this momentous occasion. And happy birthday to my atomic blogging brother Andrew as well.

11 thoughts on “99”

  5. I share my birthday with Art Garfunkel and the opening of your store.
    Al Jaffee is a lovely person to share today with. Have an excellent one.
    Happy birthday, Mike! :)

  9. Happy birthday, Mike! I hope the year treats you kindly.

    And oh, man — I read the hell out of that book, too! My neighbor had a copy of it, and it just *killed* with us. I remember particularly loving the Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, which we’d read out loud, and try to come up with our own.

Comments are closed.