His mother was described as devoutly religious, to the point she had the crucifixes removed from the hospital room before giving birth.

Jaffee became known for his ability to trace figures like Little Orphan Annie in the sand, for the amusement of his friends as well as the local bullies.

[13] David, Jaffee's youngest brother, returned to U.S. in 1940, months before much of Zarasai's Jewish population was murdered in the Holocaust, including, apparently, Mildred herself.

[14][15] Jaffee studied at the High School of Music & Art in New York City in the late 1930s, along with his brother Harry and future Mad personnel Will Elder, Harvey Kurtzman, John Severin, and Al Feldstein.

[11] These experiences of perpetual absurdity and repeated alienation were later credited by his friends and wife as having sharpened his satirical edge, making him recognize that authority figures in his life could be oppressive and absurd (something he called "anti-adultism"), and quick to find nuances others miss, especially in the semantics of the English language.

While working alongside future Mad cartoonist Dave Berg, Jaffee created several humor features for Timely, including "Inferior Man" and "Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal".

[18] Jaffee originally considered himself strictly an artist until he was disabused of the notion by editors and art directors who were reviewing his portfolio.

During this time, he took advantage of the military's free name change service, first to "Alvin Jaffe" by mistake, then to "Allan Jaffee".

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.

[23]From 1957 to 1963, Jaffee drew the elongated Tall Tales panel for the New York Herald Tribune, which was syndicated to over 100 newspapers.

[25] 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.

[30] Jaffee contributed to Kurtzman's first two post-Mad publishing efforts, Trump and the creator-owned Humbug, though both were much less successful than Mad.

"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?"

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.

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.

The third-ever Fold-In in 1964 featured a unique diagonal folding design, rather than the standard left-right vertical format.

[34] 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 used a computer only for typographic maneuvers to make certain Fold-In tricks easier to design and he typically took two weeks to sketch and finalize an image.

Mad's oldest regular contributor, Jaffee's work appeared in 500 of the magazine's first 550 issues, a total unmatched by any other writer or artist.

"[1] A four-volume hardcover boxed set, The Mad Fold-In Collection: 1964–2010, was published by Chronicle Books in September 2011, ISBN 978-0811872850.

[10] 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.

[24] 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).

"[40][41] 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 signs in various locations on a military base.

"[16] When designing his Mad Fold-Ins, Jaffee started with the finished "answer" to the Fold-In, and then spread it apart and placed a piece of tracing paper over it in order to fill in the center "throw-away" aspect of the image, which is covered up when the page is folded over, using regular pencil at this stage.

The cake featured the salutary message "Al, you have repeatedly shown artistry & care of great credit to your field."

[47]In October 2011 Jaffee was presented with the Sergio Award at a banquet in his honor from the Comic Art Professional Society.

The other inductees were Lee Falk, Mort Meskin, Spain Rodriguez, Joe Sinnott, and Trina Robbins.

[52] On March 30, 2016, it was officially declared that Jaffee had "the longest career as a comics artist" at "73 years, 3 months" by Guinness World Records.

In addition to reprints of his past work, Jaffee tells his life story to Weisman in an interview style.

[56] His oldest younger brother Harry Jaffee (1922–1985), who also had artistic talent, had long been coping with various illnesses—for a time he had been committed to Bellevue Hospital Center.