Tall Tales was an innovative newspaper strip syndicated internationally by the New York Herald Tribune from 1957–1963. Whereas newspaper strips are square, single-panel or multiple-panel horizontal gag cartoons, Al Jaffee, known for the Fold-In in MAD Magazine, once again altered the format of his work to create a vertical strip—the first, and last, in newspaper history. Tall Tales contains the best 120 wordless strips out of over 2,200, scanned from the original files. The book features a new preface by Jaffee and an introduction by Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report.

“Al Jaffee is the cartoonist’s cartoonist. He’s a pioneer in every field, from comic books to book illustration to magazine cartoons. The worst thing about Jaffee is that every time I do a drawing, I find out he’s done it before . . . and better.”—Sergio Aragonés, cartoonist

“This collection proves that not only has Al Jaffee always been funny, he’s always been disturbed.” — Stephen Colbert, from his introduction