Donald "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. is the 135th day of the year (136th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... “Paterson” redirects here. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... Motto: (traditional) In God We Trust (official, 1956–present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at the federal level; English de facto Government Federal Republic  - President George W. Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence - Declared - Recognized... is the 6th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... Miami redirects here. ... This article is about the U.S. State of Florida. ... Motto: (traditional) In God We Trust (official, 1956–present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at the federal level; English de facto Government Federal Republic  - President George W. Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence - Declared - Recognized... Motto: (traditional) In God We Trust (official, 1956–present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at the federal level; English de facto Government Federal Republic  - President George W. Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence - Declared - Recognized... Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. ... The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists created in 1946. ... The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award is given for creative achievement in comic books. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 138th day of the year (139th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 6th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... A cartoonist at work. ... Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. ... A car from 1956 Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ...

Early years

Don Martin was born on May 18, 1931 in Paterson, New Jersey. He studied Illustration and Fine Art at Newark's Fine Arts and Industrial Arts College between 1949 and 1951, and subsequently graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1952. In 1953, he worked briefly as a window trimmer and frame maker, before taking on a role providing paste ups and mechanicals for various offset printing clients and beginning his career as freelance cartoonist and illustrator.^[1] Martin's work first appeared in MAD in September 1956. is the 138th day of the year (139th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... “Paterson” redirects here. ... The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was founded in 1805 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, sculptor William Rush, and other artists and business leaders. ... Nickname: City of Brotherly Love, Philly, the Quaker City Motto: Philadelphia maneto (Let brotherly love continue) Location in Pennsylvania Coordinates: Country United States State Pennsylvania County Philadelphia Founded October 27, 1682 Incorporated October 25, 1701 Mayor John F. Street (D) Area    - City 369. ... Paste up refers to a method of laying out newspaper pages without using computerized page design programs. ... Offset printing is a widely used printing technique where the inked image is transferred (or offset) from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. ... A car from 1956 Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Career with MAD Magazine

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 gag, 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. This article is about the city in Florida. ... A transsexual (sometimes transexual) person establishes a permanent identity with the opposite gender to their assigned (usually at birth) sex. ...

Martin, who was a member of both the National Cartoonists Society and "GAG", the Graphic Artists Guild, was regarded as a quiet man who enjoyed relaxing on the beach near his home in Miami (from which he would send his work in 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 Aragonés had the same impish habit. The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists created in 1946. ... This article is about the city in Florida. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... Sergio self-portrait from Groo the Wanderer comic Issue #84 Sergio Aragonés Domenech (born 1937) is a cartoonist and writer probably best-known for his contributions to Mad Magazine. ...

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 (which was expanded to Freenbean I. Fonebone in at least one strip), 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. Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ... For the supervillain, see Onomatopoeia (comics). ... Fester Bestertester, drawn by Don Martin. ...

His work probably reached its 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. The 1960s decade refers to the years from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ... The 1980s refers to the years from 1980 to 1989. ...

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. William Maxwell Gaines (March 1, 1922 – June 3, 1992) (more frequently referred to as Bill Gaines), was the publisher and co-editor of EC Comics, and publisher of Mad for over 40 years. ...

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). 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. This article is about the year 1987. ... Antonio Prohías (January 17, 1921 - February 24, 1998), born in Cuba, was a cartoonist most famous for creating the comic strip Spy vs. ... Cracked Mazagine issue 31 - September 1963 Cracked was one of Americas oldest surviving national satire and humor magazines. ... Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ...

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. Miami redirects here. ... Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ...

Awards and honors

Martin was honored with the Ignatz Award at the Orlando Comicon in 1980 and the National Cartoonists Society's Special Features Award in both 1981 and 1982,^[1] and was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2004. The Ignatz Awards, named after Ignatz Mouse from George Herrimans landmark comic strip Krazy Kat, are awarded each year at the Small Press Expo (SPX), to recognize outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning. ... The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists created in 1946. ... The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists created in 1946. ... The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award is given for creative achievement in comic books. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

His cartoons appear in public collections held at both the National Cartoonists Society and Ohio State University, and he served as a juror at "Hürriyet Vakfi," an International Cartoon Competition held in Ankara, Turkey in 1986.^[1] The Ohio State University (OSU) is a coeducational public research university in the state of Ohio. ... Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the countrys second largest city after Ä°stanbul. ...

Influence on popular culture

In 1986, the animated feature Don Martin Does It Again was created in Germany by director Andy Knight, and produced by Gerhard Hahn's Deutsche Zeichentrick Erste Produktions GmbH & Co. KG. It won first prize at the 1986 International Children’s Film Festival in Chicago.^[2][3] Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... The bouncing ball animation (below) consists of these 6 frames. ... Founded in 1975, Facets Multi-Media, located at 1517 W. Fullerton Avenue, Chicago, 60614 is the nation’s leading conservator of great independent and foreign film and the largest videotheque in the world. ... For other uses, see Chicago (disambiguation). ...

In episode #307 - "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid" (2001) - of Matt Groening's science-fiction animated television series Futurama, lead character Hermes Conrad mentions a planet called "Don Martin 3" that went "kerflooey", a homage to one of Martin's sound effects.^[4] (Indeed, Martin himself owned a vanity licence plate which read "SHTOINK", patterned after one of his famed "onomatopoeic" sound effects.)^[5] Matthew Abram Groening is an American cartoonist (Life in Hell) and the Emmy Award-winning creator of the animated series, The Simpsons and Futurama. ... For the song from The Rocky Horror Show, see Science Fiction/Double Feature. ... The bouncing ball animation (below) consists of these 6 frames. ... A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ... This article is about the television series. ... Hermes Conrad is a character in the Futurama animated series. ... A vanity plate (US), prestige plate, private number plate, personalised registration (UK) or personalised plate (Australia and New Zealand) is a special type of vehicle registration plate on an automobile or other vehicle. ... A vehicle registration plate is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. ... For the supervillain, see Onomatopoeia (comics). ...

In 2007, a two-volume hardcover box set of his complete MAD Magazine work was published by Running Press. A member of the Perseus Book Group, the imprint is the publisher of fiction, non-fiction, cooking, humor, and kit books. ...

See also

• Captain Klutz
• Fester Bestertester

Captain Klutz is a comic strip character created by Don Martin. ... Fester Bestertester, drawn by Don Martin. ...

Bibliography

• Don Martin Steps Out (1961)
• Don Martin Bounces Back (1963)
• Don Martin 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 (1973)
• Don Martin Sails Ahead (1986)

References

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