Editing Al Jaffee (section)

===Frequent themes===
[[File:Al Jaffee 2008.png|thumb|left|Jaffee signing in 2008]]
Will Forbis wrote: "This is the core of Jaffee's work: the idea that to be alive is to be constantly beleaguered by annoying idiots, poorly designed products and the unapologetic ferocity of fate. Competence and intelligence are not rewarded in life but punished."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.forbisthemighty.com/acidlogic/im_al_jaffee.htm |title=Al Jaffee – Interesting Motherfuckers – Acid Logic ezine |publisher=Forbisthemighty.com |date=March 30, 2008 |access-date=October 14, 2009}}</ref>  In the book ''Inside Mad'', fellow ''Mad'' writer [[Desmond Devlin]] called Jaffee "the irreplaceable embodiment of ''Mad Magazine''{{'}}s range: smart but silly, angry but understanding, sophisticated but gross, upbeat but hopeless.  ... He's uncommonly interested in figuring out how things work, and exasperated because things NEVER work."<ref>''Inside Mad'', Time Home Entertainment Inc., 2013, p. 95</ref>

Jaffee contributed to hundreds of ''Mad'' articles as either a writer or an artist and often both. These included his long-running "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions", which present multiple putdowns for the same unnecessary or clueless inquiry, and several articles on [[invention]]s and gadgets, which were presented in an elaborately detailed "blueprint" style. [[Sergio Aragonés]] said of Jaffee, "He is brilliant at many things, but especially inventions.  When he draws a machine for ''Mad'', no matter how silly the idea, it always looks like it works.  He thinks that way because he is not only an artist, but a technician as well ... He is the guy who can do anything."<ref name="Mark Evanier 2002" /> In a patent file for a self-extinguishing cigarette, the inventor thanked Jaffee for providing the inspiration.<ref name="The Comics Journal' 2000, pg. 43"/> Other actual inventions that have since come to pass had appeared earlier in Jaffee articles, such as telephone redial and address books (1961), snowboarding (1965), the computer spell-checker (1967), peelable stamps, multi-blade razors (1979), and graffiti-proof building surfaces (1982).<ref name="auto"/>  "I could imagine those things," Jaffee told an interviewer.  "I never had the problem of trying to figure out how to manufacture them."<ref>Sacks, Mike, ''And Here's the Kicker'', Writer's Digest Books, 2009, pp. 224–225</ref><ref name="vulture">{{Cite web |website=[[Vulture (website)|Vulture]] |date=March 13, 2023 |access-date=March 13, 2023 |language=en-US |title=Al Jaffee, Now 102, Is Ready to Be Added to Mount Rushmore |last=Sacks |first=Mike |url=https://www.vulture.com/article/al-jaffee-interview.html}}</ref>

During the [[Vietnam War]], Jaffee also created the short-lived gag cartoon ''Hawks & Doves'', in which a military officer named Major Hawks is antagonized by Private Doves, an easygoing soldier who contrives to create surreptitious [[Peace symbols|peace signs]] in various locations on a military base. In a 1998 issue, all the ''Hawks & Doves'' strips were republished, along with an original strip in color on the back of the issue.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cain |first=Sian |date=April 11, 2023 |title=Al Jaffee, legendary Mad magazine cartoonist, dies aged 102 |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/11/al-jaffee-legendary-mad-magazine-cartoonist-dies-aged-102 |access-date=April 11, 2023 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

Some of Jaffee's features were expanded into stand-alone books, including a 1997 collection of Fold-Ins titled ''Fold This Book!'' and eight "Snappy Answers" paperbacks. Referring to the latter, Jaffee said, "I was going through a divorce when I started that. I got a lot of my hostility out through Snappy Answers."<ref name="Mark Evanier 2002"/>