The new biography, Al Jaffee's Mad Life by Mary Lou Weisman has just been released by HarperCollins. The book is embedded with new art by Jaffee himself, turning the whole thing into something like a pictorial, annotated graphic novel. Above, a Boing Boing exclusive preview of a page of art from the book.
Jaffee, 89, is best known for his fold-ins for Mad Magazine and his ongoing series of "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions." The book chronicles one of the most compellingly bizarre and burdensome childhood's imaginable in a shtetl in Lithuania – which probably explains the brilliance of his escapism as well as the sense of alienation embedded in his cultural satire. (Whatever doesn't kill us makes us more delightfully mutant.
Also opening this month, Is This the Al Jaffee Art Exhibit? October 5th, 2010 – January 30th, 2011at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Or catch him live at New York Comiccon on Saturday October 9 at 4:15.
