Don Martin (May 18, 1931 – January 6, 2000) was an American
cartoonist
A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...
whose best-known work was published in '' Mad'' from 1956 to 1988.''Don Martin Obituary'' NY Times, Jan 8 2000''Don Martin Obituary'' Salon.com, Jan 15 2000 His popularity and prominence were such that the magazine promoted Martin as "Mad's Maddest Artist."
Early years
Born on May 18, 1931, in
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Morristown, Martin studied illustration and fine art at
Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts
Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art (NSFIA) was a city-run vocational and art school in Newark, New Jersey. Opened in 1882 as the Evening Drawing School, its name was changed in 1909 to the Fawcett School of Industrial Arts, and changed agai ...
between 1949 and 1951 and subsequently graduated from the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
in 1952. In 1953, he worked briefly as a window trimmer and frame maker before providing
paste up
Paste is a term for any very thick viscous fluid. It may refer to:
Science and technology
* Adhesive or paste
** Wallpaper paste
** Wheatpaste, A liquid adhesive made from vegetable starch and water
* Paste (rheology), a substance that behaves ...
s and mechanicals for various
offset printing
Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on t ...
clients and beginning his career as freelance cartoonist and illustrator.WittyWorld Who's Who: Don Martin . Accessed March 27, 2008 Martin's work first appeared in ''Mad'' in the September 1956 issue.
Martin suffered from eye problems for his entire life. He underwent two corneal transplants: the first in 1949, at the age of 18, and the second forty years later in 1989. After the first procedure, Martin's head had to be held in place for three days by a pair of sandbags to prevent movement.
Just prior to his work with ''Mad'', Don Martin illustrated the album covers of a few legendary jazz artists for
Prestige Records
Prestige Records is a jazz record company and label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock in New York City which issued recordings in the mainstream, bop, and cool jazz idioms. The company recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz music ...
, including
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
The Art Farmer Septet
''The Art Farmer Septet'' is an album by trumpeter Art Farmer, featuring performances recorded in 1953 and 1954, arranged by Quincy Jones and Gigi Gryce, and released by Prestige Records in 1956. It is his earliest recorded full-length album, but ...
Kai Winding
Kai Chresten Winding ( ; May 18, 1922 – May 6, 1983) was a Danish-born American trombonist and jazz composer. He is known for his collaborations with fellow trombonist J. J. Johnson. His version of "More", the theme from the movie ''Mondo Ca ...
's ''Trombone By Three'' (Prestige LP 7023) and
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of ...
' ''The Brothers'' (Prestige LP 7022). He also drew greeting cards and science fiction magazine illustrations.
Career with ''Mad''
Martin brought his portfolio to the ''Mad'' offices in 1956 and was immediately given an assignment. "The drawings that I first brought to them were kind of tight," he later recalled. "There was a very tight kind of design quality — I was using a very fine line. They encouraged me to loosen up a little bit and that’s what I did."
Martin often was billed as "''Mads 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. But Martin also did several longer pieces, including parodies of poems by writers like
Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely transl ...
,
Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...
,
Edgar Guest
Edgar Albert Guest (20 August 1881 – 5 August 1959) was a British-born American poet who became known as the People's Poet. His poems often had an inspirational and optimistic view of everyday life.
Early life
Guest was born in Birmingham ...
and
Clement Clarke Moore
Clement Clarke Moore (July 15, 1779 – July 10, 1863) was an American writer, scholar and real estate developer. He is best known as author of the Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas."
Moore was Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature ...
, thematic collections of gags on a single subject such as
Moses
Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu (Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pro ...
, superheroes or
Dracula
''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...
, as well as full parodies of the ''
Gentle Ben
Gentle Ben is a bear character created by author Walt Morey and first introduced in a 1965 children's novel, ''Gentle Ben''. The original novel told the story of the friendship between a large male bear named Ben and a boy named Mark. The story pr ...
'' TV series and the films ''
Excalibur
Excalibur () is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes also attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Britain. It was associated with the Arthurian legend very early on. Excalibur and the Sword in th ...
'' and ''
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero who originated in pulp magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, films (including '' Conan the Barbarian'' and '' Conan the Destroyer'') ...
''. He also drew some insert bonus material for "Mad Specials" such as stickers and posters.
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." The six-panel "The Impressionist" features a bull who becomes a famous artist by smearing an outdoor painter against his canvas and displaying his remains as an abstract design. The four-panel "One Night in the Miami Bus Terminal" presents a man who approaches a machine labeled "Change," inserts a dollar bill, and changes to a woman. In another gag, a man is flattened by a steamroller but is saved by the intervention of two passersby, who fold him as a paper airplane and throw him to the nearest hospital.
Style and technique
Martin's immediately recognizable drawing style (which featured bulbous noses and the iconic 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. 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 or in a tight, small circle of steadfast perplexity) and by an endless capacity for newly coined,
onomatopoetic
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
sound effects, such as "BREEDEET BREEDEET" for a croaking frog, "PLORTCH" for a knight being stabbed by a sword, or "FAGROON klubble klubble" for a collapsing building. (Martin's dedication to
onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
was such that he owned a
vanity
Vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others. Prior to the 14th century it did not have such narcissistic undertones, and merely meant ''futility''. The related term vainglory is now often seen as an archaic s ...
license plate
A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate (British English), license plate (American English), or licence plate ( Canadian English), is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identificati ...
which read "SHTOINK," patterned after the style of his famed sound effects.)
His characters often had ridiculous, rhyming names such as Fester Bestertester or Fonebone (which was expanded to Freenbean I. Fonebone in at least one strip), as well as Lance Parkertip, Noted Notary Public. In this middle period, Martin created some of his most absurdist work—for example, " National Gorilla Suit Day"—an extended narrative in which a hapless character is violently assaulted by a series of attackers in various disguises, including gorillas dressed as men. Charles Taylor described Martin's unique art style:
His people are big-nosed schmoes with sleepy eyes, puffs of wiry hair, and what appear to be life preservers under the waistline of their clothes. Their hands make delicate little mincing gestures and their strangely thin, elongated feet take a 90-degree turn at the toes as they step forward. Whether they’re average Joes or headhunters, Martin’s people share the same physique: a tottering tower of obloids. Martin puts the bodies of these characters through every kind of permutation, treating them as much like gadgets as the squirting flowers and joy buzzers that populate his gags: glass eyes pop out from a pat on the back; heads are steamrollered into manhole-cover shapes. All of this accompanied by a Dadaist panoply of sound effects found nowhere else: shtoink! shklorp! fwoba-dap! It’s unlikely
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...
was aware of Don Martin, but had he been he might have recognized a kindred spirit.
His work probably reached its final peak of quality and technical detail in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In later years, particularly during the 1980s, he let other people write most of his gags, most notably
Duck Edwing
Don "Duck" Edwing (1934 – December 26, 2016) was an American gag cartoonist whose work has appeared for years in '' Mad''. His signature "Duck Edwing" was usually accompanied by a small picture of a duck, and duck calls were heard on his answer ...
.
Concurrent with his ''Mad'' output, Martin and an assortment of writers produced a series of paperback books, to which he retained the copyrights and eventual publishing rights. For this reason, the content of these books was not included in 2007's ''Completely Mad Don Martin'' box set. Martin described his heavy workload for these projects:
Once I get the OK on the roughs I start the finished drawings. I sort of begin this stage slowly, because doing the finished work always ends up being a seven-day week. An all day, and all evening ordeal. I always anticipate I can draw the books faster than I can. That is a big mistake, since it adds a lot of anxiety, and aggravation to the project. I thought I had developed a system with the last one. I worked on the book in batches of 15 pages or so. I even kept a record to see how long it took me to do the pencils, and how long it took me to do the inks, but it still ended up being seven days a week for a couple of months. I find I have to get some momentum going when I draw. I can't work with interruptions. I like to have three or four days where I don't even leave the house on an errand. I get a lot more done that way, because I build up a head of steam.
Post-''Mad'' work
In his last years of working with ''Mad'', Martin had a falling out with publisher
William Gaines
William Maxwell Gaines (; March 1, 1922 – June 3, 1992), was an American publisher and co-editor of EC Comics. Following a shift in EC's direction in 1950, Gaines presided over what became an artistically influential and historically import ...
over
royalties
A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
for the paperback compilations of older ''Mad'' articles and cartoons released under new omnibus titles, such as ''The Self-Made Mad.'' Gaines insisted that Martin's original page rate was for both publication in ''Mad'' and all future reprints in any format. Martin objected, claiming at one point that he had likely lost over $1 million in royalties because of this "flat rate" for this work. Martin later testified before a Congressional subcommittee on the rights of freelance artists.
With bad blood flowing in both directions, Martin left ''Mad'' in late 1987. His last contribution appeared in issue No. 277 of March 1988 ("One Special Day in the Dungeon", written by
Antonio Prohías
Antonio Prohías (January 17, 1921 – February 24, 1998) was a Cuban-American cartoonist. He was the creator of the satirical comic strip ''Spy vs. Spy'', which he illustrated for '' Mad'' magazine from 1961 to 1987.
Biography
In 1946, Proh ...
). Soon afterwards, he began cartooning for the rival humor publication ''
Cracked
Cracked may refer to: Television
* ''Cracked'' (British TV series), a 2008 British comedy-drama television series that aired on STV
* ''Cracked'' (Canadian TV series), a 2013 Canadian crime drama series that aired on CBC
* "Cracked", a Season 8 ( ...
Dan Clowes
Dan or DAN may refer to:
People
* Dan (name), including a list of people with the name
** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark
* Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa
**Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoi ...
. "I don't think he ever seemed to notice that ''Mad'' was respected, whereas ''Cracked'' was loathed."
After six years with ''Cracked'', Martin parted company with the magazine. A year later, he launched his own short-lived publication, ''Don Martin Magazine''. This included reprints from some of his original ''Mad'' paperbacks to which he had retained copyrights. The first issue included an otherwise nonsensical Martin "interview" conducted by Martin himself, in which he said, "My agent thinks I was nuts to have worked there 'Mad''as long as I did," before expressing fondness for his time at ''Cracked''. In 1991, Martin complained about ''Mads chummy and tribal atmosphere to the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', saying, "It's looked upon by the people there as a good thing, like one big family. I came to realize that it's only a good thing for Bill Gaines. I was so terribly loyal all those years that I turned down work because I had something for ''Mad Magazine''—which is ridiculous."
From 1989 to 1993, Don Martin created a daily comic strip called ''The Nutheads'', featuring a family that worked at "Glump's Market," a cluttered store. The characters included a mother and father, Hazel and Nutley, and their two children, Macadamia and baby Nutkin. It was briefly syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate; Martin later revived and self-syndicated the strip.
Despite a degenerative eye condition, Martin continued to draw through the 1990s using special magnifying equipment.
Martin was a member of both the
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...
and
The Graphic Artists Guild
The Graphic Artists Guild is a guild of graphic designers, illustrators, and photographers and is organized into seven chapters around the United States. It is a member of the international organization Icograda.
History
In the mid-1960s most ...
(GAG). He resigned from GAG and returned a donation from them in 1997, following a dispute.
Personal life and death
In 1972, after sitting for an interview with ''
The Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami.Coconut Grove, Florida
Coconut Grove, also known colloquially as The Grove, is the oldest continuously inhabited neighborhood of Miami in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The neighborhood is roughly bound by North Prospect Drive to the south, LeJeune Road to the west, S ...
at age 68.
Awards and honors
Martin was honored with the
Ignatz Award
The Ignatz Awards recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year at the Small Press Expo since 1997, only skipping ...
at the Orlando Comicon in 1980. He received the National Cartoonists Society's Special Features Award in both 1981 and 1982, and he was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2004.
Martin's cartoons appear in public collections at the National Cartoonists Society and the
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is a research library of American cartoons and comic art affiliated with the Ohio State University library system in Columbus, Ohio. Formerly known as the Cartoon Research Library and the Cartoon Library ...
. He served as a juror at "Hürriyet Vakfı," an International Cartoon Competition held in
Ankara
Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
in 1986.
Influence on popular culture
Martin's work has been referenced in numerous arenas, from ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...
'' and ''
Family Guy
''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom originally conceived and created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show centers around the Griffin family, Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter Griff ...
'' to ''
The Colbert Report
''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show focuse ...
'' to
Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was publishe ...
's 1999 novel '' Motherless Brooklyn'', which describes in detail the Tourette's-afflicted protagonist's affinity for Martin's cartoons. The character of
Uncle Grandpa
''Uncle Grandpa'' is an American animated television series created by Peter Browngardt for Cartoon Network. It ran from September 2, 2013 to June 30, 2017. It is based on Browngardt's animated short of the same name from the unaired '' Cartoons ...
was inspired by the look of Martin's designs.
In 1986, the animated feature ''Don Martin Does It Again'' was created in Germany by director Andy Knight, and produced by Deutsche Zeichentrick Erste Produktions GmbH & Co. KG. It won first prize at the 1986 International Children's Film Festival in Chicago. Martin strips have also been adapted on
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
MADtv
''Mad TV'' (stylized as ''MADtv'') is an American sketch comedy television series originally inspired by ''Mad (magazine), Mad'' magazine. In its initial run, it aired on Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox from 1995 to 2009. After a one-off reuni ...
.''
The name of the Fone Bone character in cartoonist Jeff Smith's epic graphic novel ''
Bone
A bone is a Stiffness, rigid Organ (biology), organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red blood cell, red and white blood cells, store minerals, provid ...
'' is derived from Fonebone, the generic surname that Martin gave to many of the characters that appeared in his '' Mad'' magazine strips.
In episode No. 307, "
The Day the Earth Stood Stupid
"The Day the Earth Stood Stupid" is the seventh episode in season three of '' Futurama''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 18, 2001. The title of this episode is a play on the title of the 1951 science fictio ...
" (2001), of
Matt Groening
Matthew Abram Groening ( ; born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, and animator. He is the creator of the comic strip ''Life in Hell'' (1977–2012) and the television series ''The Simpsons'' (1989–present), ''Fut ...
's science-fiction animated television series ''
Futurama
''Futurama'' is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of the professional slacker Philip J. Fry, who is cryogenically preserved for 1000 years a ...
'', lead character
Hermes Conrad
This article lists the many characters of ''Futurama,'' an American Cartoon series, animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the a ...
mentions a planet called "Don Martin 3" that went "kerflooey", an homage to one of Martin's sound effects.IMDb Quotes for Futurama: "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid" Accessed March 26, 2008 The "Stranded in Space" film shown on TV's ''
Mystery Science Theater 3000
''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (abbreviated as ''MST3K'') is an American science fiction comedy film review television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. ...
'' (episode 305) included various visual weapon sound effects (e.g., a gun with a flag which pops out, bearing the sound effect "BANG!"). After a stick of dynamite produced a banner reading "KACHOW", one of the show's characters wondered, "Kachow? ''Kachow?!'' What, is Don Martin working with you guys now?!"
In 2007, a two-volume hardcover box set of Martin's complete ''Mad'' magazine work was published by
Running Press
Running Press is an American publishing company and member of the Perseus Books Group. The publisher's offices are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with many of the corporate functions taking place in Perseus' New York City headquarters. I ...
.
Taking their cue from one of Martin's more celebrated stories, ''National Gorilla Suit Day'', fans have celebrated National Gorilla Suit Day by wearing
gorilla suit
Gorilla suits are a type of creature suit resembling a gorilla. The gorilla suit is a popular Halloween and costume party costume, and is also used as a source of humour, while more realistic suits have been used both to represent real gorillas i ...
s on January 31. No specific date is given in the story, which appeared in the 1963 paperback book ''Don Martin Bounces Back''.
* ''Don Martin Steps Out'' (1961)
* ''Don Martin Bounces Back'' (1963)
* ''Don Martin Drops 13 Stories'' (1965)
* ''Adventures of Captain Klutz'' (1967)
* ''Don Martin Cooks up More Tales'' (1969)
* ''Don Martin Comes on Strong'' (1971)
* ''Don Martin Carries On'' (1973)
* ''The Completely Mad Don Martin'' (1974)
* ''Don Martin Steps Further Out'' (1975)
* ''Don Martin Forges Ahead'' (1977)
* ''Don Martin Digs Deeper'' (1979)
* ''Don Martin Grinds Ahead'' (1981)
* ''Captain Klutz II'' (1983)
* ''Don Martin Sails Ahead'' (1986)
References
External links
The Don Martin Shrine various galleries featuring Don Martin's art
an alphabetical archive of all his sound effects