Don Martin, cartoonist, 68

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

Friday January 07 07:53 PM EST

"MAD" Magazine Cartoonist Dies
Don Martin, whose bizarro comics filled the pages of MAD magazine for over
three decades and inspired the likes of Far Side creator Gary Larson, died
in a Miami hospital today. He was 68. 
A representative of Baptist Hospital says the cartoonist died of cancer.
No further details were disclosed. 

Martin's goofy, grotesque strips weren't afraid to punish the lazy, sinful
or just plain unlucky. There was the man who spies a change machine,
inserts a bill and--SPLIF!--he becomes a woman. The guy at the bus depot
who sees a door marked "the quick way out," pulls the knob
and--SPLOP!--the door flattens him. The ravenous cave family, mom, dad and
junior, that sits down to Sunday dinner and--WHOMP! CHOMP! SKLIK!
GORK!--in the last panel, mom and dad exchange blank looks when they
realize that the suddenly missing junior must have been caught in the
feeding frenzy. The woman in the French bistro who nibbles on her frog
legs only to--PAF!--see them become the disembodied legs of a prince. 

"Is it funny? That's the only test I know when it comes to cartooning,"
Martin once said. "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?" 

Beginning in the 1950s, the "Don Martin Dept." was a MAD fixture for
30-odd years, earning him the nickname "MAD's Maddest Cartoonist." 

He severed ties with the magazine in 1987 after a dispute over reprint
rights and profits with the late publisher William Gaines, and took a job
at the like-minded rival, Cracked. 

He also published dozens of paperbacks of his cartoons and, while he could
not use his MAD panels, he would often bill himself as "MAD's Don Martin"
on the cover. Martin--who kept cranking out comics despite a degenerative
eye condition that required him to undergo cornea transplants, wear
painful contact lenses and use a magnifying glass to draw--sold more than
7 million copies of the books, although most are now out of print. 

When asked by the Miami Herald of his influences, Gary Larson said: "Don
Martin was the one who really stood out. I really always loved his work.
He was such a great artist." 




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