Golden Age Collection 22 22

[Scrooge]

Check out "Empire of the Summer Moon" to get the story of the commanche's -- it's well worth the read. http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Summer-Moon-Comanches-Powerful/dp/1416591060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323580468&sr=8-1

 

Thank you for the heads up. :thumbsup:

[Pat Calhoun]

Although these wonderful covers were drawn by John Stanley and Irving Tripp they make perfect testimony to the strength of the character created by Marjorie Henderson Buell who began Little Lulu as a one-panel gag strip for The Saturday Evening Post in 1935. And today is Marge’s birthday (1904-1993). Picked almost at random from my stack, these two consecutive issues well demonstrate how month after month Stanley could produce (seemingly effortlessly) clean iconic masterpieces… (LL 62 & 63 1953)

 

 

 

 

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For anyone who wants to know about the origin of MAD's Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions

 

 

Thanks for the link.

 

I always enjoyed that feature.

 

A quick check of the Internet revealed that it began in 1965 when I was a subscriber of the magazine.

 

From Mad #98

 

 

 

 

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From Wikipedia:

 

Abraham Jaffee (born March 13, 1921), known as Al Jaffee, is an American cartoonist. He is notable for his work in the satirical magazine Mad, including his trademark feature, the Mad Fold-in. As of 2010, Jaffee remains a regular in the magazine after 55 years and is its longest-running contributor. Only one issue of Mad has been published since 1964 without containing new material by Jaffee.In a 2010 interview, Jaffee said, "Serious people my age are dead."

 

In 2008, Jaffee was honored by the Reuben Awards as the Cartoonist of the Year. New Yorker cartoonist Arnold Roth said, "Al Jaffee is one of the great cartoonists of our time." Describing Jaffee, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz wrote, "Al can cartoon anything."

 

Early life

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Jaffee spent six years of his childhood in Lithuania, returning to America in advance of the Nazi takeover. He studied at The High School of Music & Art in New York City in the late 1930s, along with future Mad personnel Will Elder, Harvey Kurtzman, John Severin and Al Feldstein

 

Career

Jaffee began his career in 1941, working as a comic-book artist for several publications, including Timely Comics and Atlas Comics, the 1940s and 1950s precursors, respectively, of Marvel Comics. While working alongside future Mad cartoonist Dave Berg, Jaffee created several humor features for Timely, including "Inferior Man" and "Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal". For approximately a year and a half in the late 1940s, Jaffee was editing Timely's humor and teenage comics, including the "Patsy Walker" line.

 

Jaffee recalled in a 2004 interview,

 

I created Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal from scratch. [Editor-in-chief] Stan [Lee] said to me, "Create an animated-type character. Something different, something new." I searched around and thought, "I’ve never seen anyone do anything about a seal," so I made him the lead character. So I created "Silly Seal". One day, Stan said to me, "Why don’t you give him a little friend of some sort?" I had already created Ziggy Pig, who had his own little feature, so it was quite easy to combine them into one series. I said, "How about Ziggy Pig?" Stan said, "Okay!" I should add that, while I created Ziggy Pig, it was Stan who named him.

 

From 1957-1963, Jaffee drew the elongated Tall Tales panel for the New York Herald Tribune, which was syndicated to over 100 newspapers. Jaffee credited its middling success with a pantomime format that was easy to sell abroad, but his higher-ups were unsatisfied with the strip's status: "The head of the syndicate, who was a certifiable insufficiently_thoughtful_person, said the reason it was not selling [better] is we gotta put words in it. So they made me put words in it. Immediately lost 28 foreign papers."[10] A collection of Jaffee's Tall Tales strips was published in 2008. Jaffee also scripted the short-lived strips Debbie Deere and Jason in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[11] Since 1984, Jaffee has provided illustrations for "The Shpy," a lighthearted Jewish-themed adventure feature in Tzivos Hashem's bimonthly children's publication The Moshiach Times.

 

Mad

Jaffee first appeared in Mad in 1955, shortly after its transformation from comic book format to magazine. When editor Harvey Kurtzman left in a dispute, Jaffee went with Kurtzman. Jaffee contributed to Kurtzman's first two post-Mad publishing efforts, Trump and the creator-owned Humbug. In 2008, the first full reprint of Humbug was published as a two-volume set by Fantagraphics; the set includes a newly commissioned cover illustration by Jaffee, and a co-interview with Jaffee and Arnold Roth.

 

After Humbug folded in 1958, Jaffee brought his unpublished material to Mad, which bought the work. "Bill Gaines took out every Trump and Humbug," remembered Jaffee, "called me into his office, sat me down on the couch next to him, and went over every issue and said "Which is yours?" And as he came to each one, when he saw my stuff, he OK'd to hire me."

 

The Fold-In

In 1964, Jaffee created his longest-running Mad feature, the Fold-In. In each, a drawing is folded vertically and inward to reveal a new "hidden" picture (as well as a new caption). Originally, Jaffee intended it as a one-shot "cheap" satire of the triple fold-outs that were appearing in glossy magazines such as Playboy, National Geographic and Life. But Jaffee was asked to do a second installment, and soon the Fold-In became a recurring feature on the inside back cover of the magazine. In 2011. Jaffee reflected, "The thing that I got a kick out of was... Jeopardy! showed a Fold-in and the contestants all came up with the word they were looking for, which was “Fold-in.” So I realized, I created an English language word."

 

In 2010, Jaffee described the earliest Fold-In's:

 

I thought to myself... now it's folded in and I've got to have something on the left side here, and something right side here. And the only thing that popped into my head was that Elizabeth Taylor had just dumped Eddie Fisher and was carrying on with Richard Burton. So I had Elizabeth Taylor kissing Richard Burton, and a cop is holding the crowd back—and just for the fun of it I put Eddie Fisher being trampled by the crowd. What a cruel thing to do! And then, when you fold it in, she's moving on from Richard Burton and kissing the next guy in the crowd. It's so simplistic and silly and juvenile! And anyone could have done that!

I showed it to Al Feldstein, and the first thing I said was, "Al, I've got this crazy idea, and you're not going to buy it, because it mutilates the magazine." So I put it in front of him, and the thing about Al was, he liked things that intrigued him. The mechanics of it intrigued him. He said, "You mean, you fold it, like this...? And then...?" He folded it, he unfolded it, he folded it, and then he said, "I like this!" But I said, "Al, it mutilates the magazine." And he said, "Well, I'll have to check it with Bill." He takes it, runs it to Bill's office, and he was there a little while, and he comes back and he says, "We're going to do it! You know what Bill said? Bill said, 'So they mutilate the magazine, and then they'll buy another one to save!'

Four or five weeks later, Al comes over to me and says, "When are you going to do the next Fold-in?" And I said, "I don't have another Fold-in. That was it!" So he said, "Come on, you can come up with something else." I wracked my brain, and the only thing I could come up with was Nixon [whose face was hidden within curtain folds]. That one really set the tone for what the cleverness of the Fold-ins has to be. It couldn't just be bringing someone from the left to kiss someone on the right."

The Fold-In has since become one of Mad's signature features, and has appeared in almost every issue of the magazine from 1964-2008.[8] A single issue in 1977 was published without a Fold-In (though Jaffee supplied the issue's back cover), and a 1980 issue featured a unique double-visual gimmick by Jaffee in which the inside back cover and the outside back cover merged to create a third image when held up to the light. The third-ever Fold-In in 1964 featured a unique diagonal folding design, rather than the standard left-right vertical format. The image revealed the four members of The Beatles becoming bald (and thus losing their popularity).

 

The Far Side creator Gary Larson described his experience with the Fold-In: "The dilemma was always this: Very slowly and carefully fold the back cover... without creasing the page and quickly look at the joke. Jaffee's artistry before the folding was so amazing that I suspect I was not alone in not wanting to deface it in any way." In 1972, Jaffee received a Special Features Reuben Award for his Fold-Ins.

 

Jaffee only uses a computer for typographic maneuvers to make certain Fold-in tricks easier to design. Otherwise, all his work is done by hand. "I'm working on a hard, flat board... I cannot fold it. That's why my planning has to be so correct." In 2008, Jaffee told one newspaper, "I never see the finished painting folded until it's printed in the magazine. I guess I have that kind of visual mind where I can see the two sides without actually putting them together." Contrasting current art techniques and Jaffee's approach, Mad's art director, Sam Viviano, said, "I think part of the brilliance of the Fold-in is lost on the younger generations who are so used to Photoshop and being able to do stuff like that on a computer."

 

 

 

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...today is Marge’s birthday (1904-1993).

 

 

Little Lulu is one of my all time favorite comic books.

 

The most memorable stories for me were the "Alvin Storytelling Time" tales.

 

 

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Here is one of them.

 

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[Scrooge]

 

Though some / most of us probably know Mrs. Miniver more from the Greer Garson movie, the character Mrs Miniver appeared in a fortnightly column in The London Times. As one reviewer online puts it: "The stories are beautiful little vignettes of daily life, each capturing through Mrs. Miniver's observant eyes a day, an incident, a moment, in writing that can be savored as she savors each experience. Everyday things become like a simple flower under a magnifying glass, revealing unexpected detail and beauty."

[BangZoom]

Though some / most of us probably know Mrs. Miniver more from the Greer Garson movie, the character Mrs Miniver appeared in a fortnightly column in The London Times. As one reviewer online puts it: "The stories are beautiful little vignettes of daily life, each capturing through Mrs. Miniver's observant eyes a day, an incident, a moment, in writing that can be savored as she savors each experience. Everyday things become like a simple flower under a magnifying glass, revealing unexpected detail and beauty."

 

 

Thanks for the additional info.

 

If anyone wants to read further on the subject, they should check out the Wikipedia entry about Jan Struther as she was the actual writer of the Mrs Miniver columns: Link

 

And, how about this for a bit of cartoon trivia: Struther is the great-aunt of Ian Maxtone-Graham, former co-executive producer of The Simpsons.

 

 

[GACollectibles]

Here is one of them.

 

 

Thanks for posting that. For years I have been meaning to check out Little Lulu, but I had never read a single story. Til now.

[sacentaur]

A priceless Little Lulu story - what issue was it from?

[BB-Gun]

A priceless Little Lulu story - what issue was it from?

I think I have that one but I like the Story Telling Time issues too.

 

[BangZoom]

 

Thanks for posting that. For years I have been meaning to check out Little Lulu, but I had never read a single story. Til now.

 

If you enjoy reading humor stories, I would definitely recommend Little Lulu.

 

They are currently being reprinted by Dark Horse so they are readily available:

 

Link

[BangZoom]

A priceless Little Lulu story - what issue was it from?

 

 

Four Color #146 (thumbs u