His pictures help to balance the books; they are a good defence against the dark arts.
Working on this article gave me a good break from investigating Jean Rhys!
Don Martin the man
Don Martin (1931 - 2000) was an American cartoonist. His best-known work appeared in Mad Magazine between 1956 and 1988.
He had bad problems with his eyes throughout his life, yet he produced some unforgettable pictures.
Don Martin with an example of his work:
Don Martin Man
Don Martin had a unique, immediately recognisable style.
His cartoon people often hold their fingers in a particular way and their feet fold over. They often have similar and typical expressions too.
Here is a good example of a Don Martin Man:
Portraits
In his portraits, even Gainsborough’s Blue Boy and the Beatles look like Don Martin Men:
Don Martin’s new language
Don Martin invented some new and weird words to describe sound effects: shtoink! shklorp! fwoba-dap! ack gak gark! blorf breedeet!
Finding the cartoons today
Unfortunately there are not many of Don Martin’s best cartoons available online as images. Many of the magazine pages that are there did not reproduce well so are difficult to read. I couldn’t find some really good pictures I remembered.
There are some compilations available on Amazon, but they are extremely expensive. This one was going for over £800:
I once had a Don Martin book with some good cartoons, but I donated it to a charity shop a long time ago. I wish that I had kept it!
I also wish that someone would reprint everything and sell it for a reasonable price.
There is a lot of background information about Don Martin's working life and his style in Wikipedia.
His old website has been archived on the Wayback Machine. The contents are all copyrighted.
