The Mad Book of Magic and Other Dirty Tricks by Al Jaffee
“Magic” is lettering based on Mad’s custom logo. The animated condensed sans-serif caps with contour used for “Dirty Tricks” are probably custom dran as well. The smaller text uses Futura Medium in caps.
Master cartoonist Al Jaffee (1921–2023) of Mad magazine, who is best known for his Mad Fold-Ins and Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions series, created this classic book of wild and psychotic magic tricks. Edited together with Jerry De Fuccio and published by Signet in 1970, it became a hit through North America and Europe, becoming a household item for many growing up in the 1970s.
After I found out about the passing of ole Jaffee I searched my library for works of his that I had found in antique/charity stores on my travels, as to dedicate a well deserved use on Fonts In Use. One of my most relished books of his is this, and what better book to include; it uses a great variety of typefaces alongside his timeless artwork.
Rest in peace Al, your work will never be forgotten (YECCH!).
The original page art for the book will be pictured whenever feasible instead of regular print pages, in order to get a clean view and fair insight. Imaging courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
Title page, featuring Clarion Wide (“The”), Mad’s outlined logo, Quentin or the virtually identical Davison Carousel F (“Magic”), Hobo (credits), and News Gothic (“A Signet Book”. locations). The wide futuristic sans for “New American Library” is probably a custom font used by Times Mirror, see Patrick Concannon’s comment. Corporate Image is similar.
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An example of News Gothic. This is the main text face (including the speech bubbles), and in most Mad books and magazines.
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“Iron Stomach Man” is stylized in Orplid on a curve with its round-top form for A.
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Within the last sentence of this introductory paragraph “MAGIC” is stylized in Clarendon Bold Condensed.
The “John” person that noted this suggestion in text (seen to the lower right of the page art) is John Putnam, presumably designing for this book.
Volta and Latin Bold Condensed used for a sign
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Orplid makes another appearance ("EBUC").
Futura is used for the foreword, along with a Bold heading. This foreword was only added after the reprints of the book.
In the dedication page, the heading is set in Commercial Script between ornaments, and the text in Bodoni.
In the preface, the initial “If” is set in Flash and the rest in News Gothic Bold.
On the back cover, the book’s tagline (“Amaze friends…”) is written in Alternate Gothic, and the book title is reiterated using Dom Casual in all caps.
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The book spine features more Alternate Gothic.
3 Comments on “The Mad Book of Magic and Other Dirty Tricks by Al Jaffee”
Thanks for this lovely tribute, Sunny.
The MAD logo is very likely custom drawn. In 1998, Harold Lohner took it as inspiration for a typeface: Madfont comes in three all-caps styles: Regular, Thorns, Bars.
The version of the book featured on Archive.org is actually a 5th printing, per printer’s key. The 1970 1st printing only features a Signet Books logo. So the 5th printing could be from later than 1970, maybe 1975 if they only made printings once per year.
But Times Mirror did use something similar to Corporate Gothic in an ad for Plan Hold Corp. filing systems as early as 1969. And there are other books from NAL and NEL published prior to 1970 that may have featured a logo set in the font. Many Times Mirror news stations too. Jeppesen Sanderson, who were purchased by Times Mirror in 1961, also used it for their logo during the 1970s, possibly earlier.
Whoops, when I said 5th printing, I actually meant 6th printing, but you get the idea. The Copyright and First Printing dates on front matter need not have to change, so there is no clear way to tell the actual printing date based on these. And Archive.org features numerous errors of this nature when it comes to publication dates.