THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF IMITATION

Had I know 20+ years ago that some day I would get to meet Al Jaffee of MAD magazine, I would make sure I secure the work of making the parody of his famous fold-in page.  Come to think of it, I cannot recall how the work was doled out.  Maybe it was just whoever happened to be around.  Interesting thing to note is that although The Cooper Union has three schools within it, namely Architecture, Arts, and Engineering, most, if not all, the drawings in the MAD parody was done by Engineering students.  Talk about wanting to do something different with our lives.  In a future post I will show the rest of the thin magazine, but below is the two-page spread I did.  It is a copycat of Dave Berg's regular series, "The Lighter Side Of".  Again, someone provided the ideas and I did the drawings.

I scanned the two pages separately and digitally re-combined them.  There are five mini-stories.  Note that M.E. LAB spreads across the two pages.

Perhaps to do better justice for the drawing the reader should read the stories one page at a time.  Bigger pictures and hopefully easier-to-read text.  I am amazed what I was capable of without the aide of fancy computer programs.

A little background:  Back in those days, Cooper Union did not have a dorm and students either commute from home or rent nearby.  Or as the STUDENT HOUSING story claims, sleep in the nearby Astor Place subway station of the #6 line...  Again, note that the second strip is continuation of frame #1 on the other page.  Professor JWH was another person who liked to talk.

I belatedly (read: this week) discovered that Dave Berg went to Cooper Union and lived in Brooklyn.  Although he died of cancer in 2002, he was past 80 years old at the time.  Fifty of those years were spent at MAD magazine.  Amazing!

THE MOST SINCERE FORM OF FLATTERY

When a classmate from Cooper Union learned of my meeting with Mr. Al Jaffee, of MAD magazine Fold-in fame, he rightly asked if I showed Mr. Jaffee my "works."  What works?

Many years ago when I was an engineering student at The Cooper Union, I was active with the school newspaper, as a proof reader and a cartoonist.  Every April Fool's Day the newspaper would do a special parody issue, at least while I was there.  I clearly recall parodies of People, USA Today, New York, and MAD.  I understand in earlier years the newspaper would retain its typical format but the news were all made-up or satirical.  But for the magazines that I mentioned, the newspaper staff painstakingly made the special issue look very much like the real thing, including page format, logo, and design.  At first glance you would think it was the real thing.  Of course, the magazine name would change slightly, so we had MADD instead of MAD, Cooper People and not just Cooper.  Maybe we had Cooper Today, as I do not have a copy of the USA Today parody and memory is not that good.

I had a great time contributing to the MAD parody.  The magazine had only twelve pages, counting the front and back covers, as well as the inside front and inside back cover.  I drew four of the twelves pages and someone supplied the stories.  I am sure I had some current copies of MAD magazine of the time to base my drawings on.  The following two strips, page one and the inner back page (where Mr. Jaffe would normally have his fold-in) are imitation of Don Martin's drawings.  It has been many years since I drew these pictures, but I studied Master Martin's art well, as I made sure the characters have funny, extra-long feet that bend downward.  I happened to recently bought a two-volume collection of all of Master Martin's works.

For a short while, Cooper Union used the nearby National Bookstore as the school bookstore.  The store is no longer there now, its place occupied by FedEx/Kinko, which is right next to the Starbucks, which itself used to be Riviera Café.  The staff at National Bookstore were notorious for being unfriendly.  We had to check our bags at the front and they did not accept a few forms of money.  Of course, when you do a satire, you usually exaggerate things a bit.

  Bowlmor was the favorite bowling alley for Cooper Union student.  I never visited the place but did know Dean Baker as someone who liked to talk.  

HANG-OUT WITH MR. FOLD-IN AL JAFFEE

I consider myself a simple person with simple needs.  As long as the place I live has a public library and broadband Internet access, I consider myself happy.  All the big-city entertainment is unnecessary for me. I do not stay out late and do not enjoy drinking or dancing anyway.  I need to make one exception.  There are certain events that if I live in a small town nowhere near a big city I would not be able to attend.  Like the panel discussion held at the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) featuring MAD magazine's Al Jaffee and other famous cartoonists.


When I learned about the event on Facebook I immediately accepted the invitation.  The next day at work I happened to glance at my wall calendar and realized that the event would conflict with a company dinner.  Every year the Asian networking group, networking in the sense of making new friends and contacts, at my office hosts a dinner to celebrate Lunar New Year. I already registered for the dinner, the cost for which went up significantly this year so I had to attend.  Luckily, the dinner was held in Chinatown, which is not too far from the MoCCA.  It was a ten-course dinner but I had to split after course #4 came out.  I have not been to the area near Houston Street and Broadway for a while but I do not recall seeing a street-level entrance to any museum.  Sure enough, the MoCCA for now was more like a gallery studio in an office building.  I got there with about half an hour left of the stated time, 7 pm to 9 pm.  The gallery was pretty full, with people filling all the folded chairs setup for the occasion, with some people watching the panel on a TV screen just a partition over in the same room.  Mr. Jaffee was taking questions from the floor.  Perhaps he already talked about his experience with the fold-ins, but by the time I arrived the topics discussed included the annual company trip (which was supposed to be just a one-time deal) and SATSQ (that's "Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions" for those who do not follow MAD in recent years).  I learned that Mr. Jaffee would be turning 91-year-old shortly.  


While I followed MAD magazine off and on and recognize some names I really did not know that much about Mr. Jaffee.  It was very interesting to hear him talk and meeting him afterward.  I knew that he had a collection of the fold-ins that came out recently.  I almost bought it from the B&N on 86th Street just last month but deemed it too heavy to carry with me on my trek to Ward's Island.  I planned to special-order it from B&N and make use of my B&N club discount.  Instead, I decided to buy it at the MoCCA in hope of getting the legendary cartoonist to sign it.  Unfortunately, his hands are too shaky to sign but he came prepared with a variety of signature stickers from which fans can choose.  (At home later that night, I discovered that the fold-in tome also comes with a signature sticker.)  A small price to pay for living past 90 and being so healthy, at least to the eyes, I guess.