Remembering Don Martin - Master Artist Featured In Mad Magazine
Remembering Don Martin, a classic artist of MAD Magazine.
MAD magazine was published as far back as the 1950s, and shockingly distributed throughout the world in the days preceding the Internet.
By the 1980s, MAD Magazine could be purchased in India as well as America, in Canada as well as England – MAD Magazine was a dominant and global force in the world of satire and comedy, not to mention incredibly beautiful ink art.
Don Martin was a long-time contributor to MAD Magazine at the zenith of the magazine’s success throughout the 1980s.
His work and style are unmistakable.
Don Martin worked for the magazine with founder and editor William Gaines.
Martin’s famous trademark characters were always easily identifiable in common facial features and styles.
Martin also had a trademark style of transmitting the most wonderful and indescribable forms of noises in his comic panels.
Some of Don Martin’s contemporaries included Al Jaffee, Mort Drucker, Dave Berg, and Sergio Aragones.
Shortly after founder William Gaines died, Mad Magazine started to decline.
Briefly Mad Magazine found success with a comedy television show MAD TV, which featured not only top-notch sketch comedy but also cartoon segments that brought to life previous and new MAD magazine comic panels.
And of course, Martin was a master of black-ink drawing – an older artform reserved truly for the artistically brave and gifted.
Perhaps a sign of the times, and perhaps a sign of his heart, his humour was quick, easy to understand, clean, and family oriented no matter the subject addressed.
It’s as if Don Martin knew he had a league of young reading men at his beck and call, waiting to smile because of his talent and incredibly telling drawings, and Don Martin never disappointed.
Ever.
Rest in peace, one of the greatest of all time.
Don Martin’s trademark art will always be missed by those who truly understood his wisdom and gift.
As an interesting side note as well, MAD magazine had a major competitor in their day, CRACKED magazine.
While CRACKED may not necessarily have reached the same heights as MAD, CRACKED has experienced both longevity and rebirth.
Certainly CRACKED magazine is also worthy of it’s own lengthy analysis, and should likewise receive tribute.
The days and art of MAD magazine are not likely to be repeated again.
Men like Don Martin and the crew of MAD Magazine and Cracked Magazine put cities on international maps.
MAD Magazine was partially responsible for making Madison Avenue in New York City the advertising capital of the world.
What follows below, for the time that it is available on YouTUBE (TM), is an independent video assembly showing some of Don Martin’s masterful and beautiful work.
Readers can learn more about MAD magazine by visiting their official web site.
Enjoy.
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