Cartoonist. Born Passaic, New Jersey, 1931. Died Miami,
January 6, 2000, aged 68.
A motorist, noticing a sign saying "Pay Toll Ahead",
duly presents a disembodied head to the tolling booth attendant.
A man inserts a dollar bill into a change machine and -
presto! - is changed into a woman. Two fishermen are stunned
when one of them catches a young child, but throw it back
in because it's too small. A group of six pallbearers, carrying
a coffin through an icy cemetery, slip on the ice - and
are replaced, in the last panel, by six groups of pallbearers,
taking six coffins through the ice.
Don Martin's humour could be undeniably dark, but taking
place in a world of grotesque, slack-jawed, big-eared, round-nosed
people, the looney "Don Martin Dept." was perhaps
the most popular section of Mad Magazine for many years.
Though his drawings were hardly as sophisticated as those
of other Mad artists - many of whom had experience in crime
and horror comics - they passed his own test: "Is it
funny? That's the only test I know when it comes to cartooning.
Not whether it's sick, or whether it's going to ruin people's
values or morals. You only have to ask a simple question:
is it funny?" For the countless fans of "Mad's
Maddest Cartoonist" (as he was billed), the answer
was blissfully simple.
Martin spent his childhood in three New Jersey towns, though
he once wrote that "all three towns deny any and all
of this information." His influences were diverse:
the grotesque paintings of Hieronymous Bosch, the crazy
slapstick of Warner Brothers cartoons, the caricatures of
American illustrator Al Hirschfeld.
After attending the Newark School of Fine Art, and graduating
from art school in Philadelphia, Martin sold the first of
his unmistakable cartoons to Mad Magazine in 1956. Founded
four years previously by maverick publisher William M. Gaines,
Mad had already won a reputation for attacking every aspect
of American culture, from other comic books to the dark
world of McCarthyism. Gaines had gathered an outstanding
field of artists, including Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Al Feldstein
and especially the brilliant editor, Harvey Kurtzman. Though
Martin was a capable parodist, most of his pages stood out
as pure silliness amidst pages of barbed satire.
Nonetheless, he soon became one of "the usual gang
of idiots", renowned for one-page gags where characters
would meet with surreal misfortunes, and where machines
and gadgetry - steamrollers, power tools, paper towel dispensers,
parachutes that fail to open - were the enemy. To the Mad
lexicon of original, pseudo-Jewish words (fershlugginer,
potrzebie), he added some inventive sound effects: WHOMP!,
SKLIK! and sound of a collapsing skyscraper: FAGROOM! His
own licence plate read "SHTOINK" after another
of his effects.
"There's always been physical suffering in comedy,"
he said. "Even ancient clowns kicked each other in
the seat of the pants or hit each other over the head. It's
the same thing in our time, just a little stronger."
Over the years, Mad became America's most popular comic
book, even winning credit for its role in shaping the counter-culture
of the sixties. At its peak in 1972, it had a circulation
of over two million. Surprisingly, despite their star status,
Martin and his fellow artists were employed on a work-for-hire
basis. While Mad retained all rights to reprint and profit
from him, Martin had no rights to his own work.
Fortunately, he had other avenues. Beginning with Don Martin
Steps Out! in 1962, he did a series of paperbacks, which
went on to sell over seven million copies. Though often
billed on the covers as "Mad's Don Martin", the
rights for these (previously unpublished) cartoons were
his alone.
The issue of freelance rights still concerned him, and
he would testify on the matter before a Congressional subcommittee.
In 1987, frustrated by Gaines's refusal to change, he stopped
contributing to Mad - instead taking his talents to a similar
magazine, Cracked, whose publisher's policy (rare among
U.S. comic books) allowed artists a share of the creative
rights. (In 199?, animated versions of his cartoons would
briefly appear in Fox Television's short-lived Mad TV.)
Martin continued to work, despite a degenerative eye condition
that forced him to undergo corneal transplants. To draw
his last strips, he had to wear special contact lenses,
which caused him great discomfort, and use a magnifying
glass.
Like many humorists, he was a quiet man in real life. "He
was a shy and retiring sort of guy," said a long-time
friend, Laurence Donovan, "considering he drew a comic
strip that was crazy." In 1990, when asked about his
influences, The Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson said: "Don
Martin was the one who really stood out. I really always
loved his work. He was such a great artist." Perhaps
Andy Warhol gave an even greater compliment, however, when
he said that Mad Magazine taught him to love people with
big ears.
Martin is survived by his wife, Norma; his son, Max; a
brother, Ralph, and a grandson.
