As mentioned in earlier posts, there were other Engineering students who drew for the April's Fool issue of the Cooper Pioneer school newspaper. I do not recall knowing any of them except for Matthew Imbriano. He did the cover page and the back cover, which is a fold-in à la Al Jaffee.
Matt and I were Mechanical Engineering students and we had many classes together. More than once he showed me his drawings, perhaps made during class or some other times that he was bored. After all these years I cannot recall the details of what he drew but one drawing I remember very well. It depicts Professor Chinitz, probably in a thermodynamic class, "holding" a quantity of energy in his hand, with the quantity of energy looking like a small energy ball often seen in Street Fighter or Dragon Ball. I can draw decent pictures but am not so good at caricatures, or at least not from memory. Matt was very good at drawing caricatures and the picture of Prof. Chinitz was very accurate. I wonder if he's making a living with his talent, or at least still make use of it.
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.
