• by Stan Mack , Featured Contributor, July 7, 2014

Editor's Note: In 2014, while doing his regular weekly "RealMAD" comic strip for MediaPost, cartoonist and journalist Stan Mack did one on another legendary cartoonist, MAD magazine's Al Jaffee, who died April 10 at the age of 102. In it, Jaffee -- the creator of MAD's trademark "fold-in" comic format -- tells Stan about being commissioned to do one that would run after he died, but did not reveal the punchline.

"The New York Times obit for the extraordinary Al Jaffee says: 'In 2020, MAD celebrated Mr. Jaffee with a “Special All Jaffee Issue,” full of his work. It was to mark his formal retirement, and it included a fold-in that he had created in 2014 in anticipation of that eventuality'," Stan posted Thursday on his @realstanmack Instagram account.

"I hung out with Al in his Provincetown lair and admired his other brilliant illustration work while he told me the story behind his yet-to-be-revealed final fold-in. I did this comic for my series in MediaPost," Stan explained.

You can see Stan's 2014 strip below and Jaffee's final fold-in here.

Stan Mack's "Real Life Funnies" comic strip collection will be published later this year by Fantagraphics.