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'Don Martin' (May 18 1931 – January 6 2000) was a popular American cartoon artist whose best-known work appeared in ''MAD'' magazine from 1956 to 1988. He received the National Cartoonist Society Special Features Award for 1981 and 1982, and was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2004.
Martin was born in Paterson, New Jersey. After graduating from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, he began his career as freelance cartoonist and illustrator. Martin's work first appeared in ''MAD'' in September 1956.
Martin often was billed as "''MAD's Maddest Artist." Whereas other features in ''MAD'', recurring or otherwise, typically were headed with pun-filled "department" titles, Martin's work always was headed with only his name—"Don Martin Dept."—further fanfare presumably being unnecessary. At his peak, each issue of ''MAD'' typically carried three Martin strips of one or two pages each.
Although Martin's contributions invariably featured outrageous events and sometimes outright violations of the laws of space-time, his strips typically had unassuming generic titles such as "A Quiet Day in the Park" or "One Afternoon at the Beach". In one four-panel article, titled "One Night in the Miami Bus Terminal," a man approaches a change machine. He inserts a dollar bill and the machine changes ''him'' into a woman.
Martin was regarded as a quiet man who enjoyed relaxing on the beach near his home in Miami (he would send in his work to the ''MAD'' offices in New York City). Reportedly, he liked slipping into the backgrounds of photographs tourists would take of each other, so when their films were developed they would wonder who the strange man was. Fellow ''MAD'' contributor Sergio Aragones had the same impish habit.
Martin's immediately recognizable drawing style (which featured bulbous noses, and the famous "hinged foot") was loose, rounded, and filled with broad slapstick. His inspirations, plots and themes were often bizarre and at times bordered on the berserk. In his earliest years with ''MAD'', Martin used a more jagged, scratchy line. But his style evolved, settling into its familiar form by 1964. It was typified by a sameness in the appearance of the characters (the punchline to a strip often was emphasized by a deadpan take with eyes half open and the mouth absent) and by an endless capacity for newly coined, onomatopoetic sound effects, such as "BREEDEET BREEDEET" for a croaking frog or "FAGROON klubble klubble" for a collapsing building. His characters often had ridiculous, rhyming names such as Fester Bestertester, Fonebone, or Lance Parkertip, Noted Notary Public. In this middle period he created some of his absurdist classics- for example "National Gorilla Suit Day"- in which a hapless suburbanite is repeatedly assaulted by (inter alia) a gorilla dressed in various disguises.
His work probably reached its peak of quality and technical detail in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Over later years, particularly during the 1980s, he let other people write most of his gags.
In his last years of working with ''MAD'', Martin had a falling out with publisher William Gaines over royalties for the "''MAD'' Books": paperback compilations of older MAD articles and cartoons released under new omnibus titles, like "The Self-Made Mad." Gaines insisted that he had paid the cartoonists for both their publication in ''MAD'' and all future reprints in any format. Martin did not agree, claiming at one point that he likely lost over a million dollars in royalties because of this perceived "flat rate" for this work.
With bad blood flowing in both directions, Martin left ''MAD'' in 1987. His last contribution to MAD appeared in issue #277 of March 1988 (''One Special Day in the Dungeon'', written by Antonio Prohias). Thus did ''MAD'' lose its signature cartoonist, while Martin's work would never be prominent in the public eye again. Not long afterwards, he began cartooning for the rival humor publication ''Cracked'', which tweaked its larger competitor by billing Martin as "''Cracked's Crackedest Artist." After six years with ''Cracked'', Martin parted company with the magazine in 1993. A year later, he launched his own short-lived publication, Don Martin Magazine. This included reprints from some of his MAD paperbacks to which he still retained copyrights.
Despite a degenerative eye condition, Martin continued to draw into the 1990s using special magnifying equipment. He died of cancer in Miami, Florida, in 2000, aged 68.
★ Don Martin once had a vanity plate that read "SHTOINK", one of his many sound effects.
★ In episode #307 of Futurama, entitled "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid", Hermes mentions a planet called "Don Martin 3" that went "kerflooey", a reference to one of Martin's frequently used sound effects.
★ An animated TV special, "Don Martin Does It Again," won first prize at the 1986 International Children Festival.
★ Captain Klutz
★ Fester Bestertester
★ Don Martin Collectors' Homepage
★ Don Martin tribute on Lambiek.net
★ Article about Martin on Salon.com
★ The Don Martin Dictionary, an alphabetical archive of all his sound effects
★ NCS Awards
★ National Gorilla-Suit Day
Martin was born in Paterson, New Jersey. After graduating from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, he began his career as freelance cartoonist and illustrator. Martin's work first appeared in ''MAD'' in September 1956.
| Contents |
| Maddest Artist |
| Style and technique |
| Break with ''MAD'' |
| Trivia |
| See also |
| External links |
Maddest Artist
Martin often was billed as "''MAD's Maddest Artist." Whereas other features in ''MAD'', recurring or otherwise, typically were headed with pun-filled "department" titles, Martin's work always was headed with only his name—"Don Martin Dept."—further fanfare presumably being unnecessary. At his peak, each issue of ''MAD'' typically carried three Martin strips of one or two pages each.
Although Martin's contributions invariably featured outrageous events and sometimes outright violations of the laws of space-time, his strips typically had unassuming generic titles such as "A Quiet Day in the Park" or "One Afternoon at the Beach". In one four-panel article, titled "One Night in the Miami Bus Terminal," a man approaches a change machine. He inserts a dollar bill and the machine changes ''him'' into a woman.
Martin was regarded as a quiet man who enjoyed relaxing on the beach near his home in Miami (he would send in his work to the ''MAD'' offices in New York City). Reportedly, he liked slipping into the backgrounds of photographs tourists would take of each other, so when their films were developed they would wonder who the strange man was. Fellow ''MAD'' contributor Sergio Aragones had the same impish habit.
Style and technique
Martin's immediately recognizable drawing style (which featured bulbous noses, and the famous "hinged foot") was loose, rounded, and filled with broad slapstick. His inspirations, plots and themes were often bizarre and at times bordered on the berserk. In his earliest years with ''MAD'', Martin used a more jagged, scratchy line. But his style evolved, settling into its familiar form by 1964. It was typified by a sameness in the appearance of the characters (the punchline to a strip often was emphasized by a deadpan take with eyes half open and the mouth absent) and by an endless capacity for newly coined, onomatopoetic sound effects, such as "BREEDEET BREEDEET" for a croaking frog or "FAGROON klubble klubble" for a collapsing building. His characters often had ridiculous, rhyming names such as Fester Bestertester, Fonebone, or Lance Parkertip, Noted Notary Public. In this middle period he created some of his absurdist classics- for example "National Gorilla Suit Day"- in which a hapless suburbanite is repeatedly assaulted by (inter alia) a gorilla dressed in various disguises.
His work probably reached its peak of quality and technical detail in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Over later years, particularly during the 1980s, he let other people write most of his gags.
Break with ''MAD''
In his last years of working with ''MAD'', Martin had a falling out with publisher William Gaines over royalties for the "''MAD'' Books": paperback compilations of older MAD articles and cartoons released under new omnibus titles, like "The Self-Made Mad." Gaines insisted that he had paid the cartoonists for both their publication in ''MAD'' and all future reprints in any format. Martin did not agree, claiming at one point that he likely lost over a million dollars in royalties because of this perceived "flat rate" for this work.
With bad blood flowing in both directions, Martin left ''MAD'' in 1987. His last contribution to MAD appeared in issue #277 of March 1988 (''One Special Day in the Dungeon'', written by Antonio Prohias). Thus did ''MAD'' lose its signature cartoonist, while Martin's work would never be prominent in the public eye again. Not long afterwards, he began cartooning for the rival humor publication ''Cracked'', which tweaked its larger competitor by billing Martin as "''Cracked's Crackedest Artist." After six years with ''Cracked'', Martin parted company with the magazine in 1993. A year later, he launched his own short-lived publication, Don Martin Magazine. This included reprints from some of his MAD paperbacks to which he still retained copyrights.
Despite a degenerative eye condition, Martin continued to draw into the 1990s using special magnifying equipment. He died of cancer in Miami, Florida, in 2000, aged 68.
Trivia
★ Don Martin once had a vanity plate that read "SHTOINK", one of his many sound effects.
★ In episode #307 of Futurama, entitled "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid", Hermes mentions a planet called "Don Martin 3" that went "kerflooey", a reference to one of Martin's frequently used sound effects.
★ An animated TV special, "Don Martin Does It Again," won first prize at the 1986 International Children Festival.
See also
★ Captain Klutz
★ Fester Bestertester
External links
★ Don Martin Collectors' Homepage
★ Don Martin tribute on Lambiek.net
★ Article about Martin on Salon.com
★ The Don Martin Dictionary, an alphabetical archive of all his sound effects
★ NCS Awards
★ National Gorilla-Suit Day
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