Customer Reviews

MAD's Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin (MAD's Greatest Artists Series)

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Of all the artists to ever contribute to Mad Magazine, Don Martin's work is probably the most recognizable. The hinged feet, long fingers, crooked noses, and expressive sound effects (like THOINK! or FLUGGLE!) made him the first comics I would really slow down to read when getting the latest issue of Mad as a boy. Now every single bit of his work for the magazine has been collected here in a beautiful box set.

The pages are roughly the size of the old magazine, so you still get the same effect of first reading it. The colors are amazing on the acid-free paper. His first comics are a little rough artistically and don't really look much like his later work, but it's interesting to see it evolve from the more detailed "sketch comedy" to the four-panel funnies he later made popular.

The only shortcoming these books have is that they neglect Don's paperbacks that he wrote under the Mad title (ex: "The Mad Adventures of Captain Klutz", "Don Martin Forges Ahead", "Don Martin Digs Deeper", etc). Characters such as Captain Klutz and Chester Bestertester don't show up here, and to me those books were some of his funniest material. Maybe the Mad guys will release those as a similar set later on so we don't lose any of Martin's madness.

These books are heavy and are obviously meant to last. If you're familiar with the "Absolute" sets DC Comics puts out ("Absolute Kingdom Come") then you'll be familiar with how this is laid out. It's pricey, but holding 30 years worth of comics by one of the funniest cartoonists around makes it worth the expense.

I pre-ordered this set and it finally came today. I was going nuts waiting for this collection. Like another reviewer mentioned, the first thing I noticed was that these are some heavy books. Pages are printed on pristine archival paper which has some heft and reproduces the black & white comics fairly well. Besides all of his art, most of the "usual gang of idiots" - the core of MAD artists & writers during it's heyday - provide commentary throughout. I especially enjoyed Dick DeBartolo's pieces, as he seems to have been the closest of Don's friends from the magazine. Sergio Aragones also has a nice two-page tribute.

Another nice touch is all of the comics (which are in chronological order) have a legend at the bottom with the issue and publication date.

As great as this set is, I do have a few gripes - some of the color pages (particularly a few of the back cover gags and the different stickers from Super Specials) were poorly reproduced with colors being "off", muted, or slightly blurry. It's possible that only some copies (including mine) were part of a bad printing run, I don't know. I drop my rating by a star for this and also because some of the B&W art is not as crisp as it was in the magazine, but even this problem is not enough to spoil the overall presentation and uniqueness of having all of Martin's MAD work in one place. It's a bargain at this price.

If you love Don Martin, Mad Magazine, or just the comic art, this book deserves your attention. A classy trophy like package of all of Martin's work for Mad Magazine, in one larger than life, heavy stock page after another. It won't take long to get through, which makes the price a bit steep for an average laugh seeker, but for those of us that can laugh time and time again looking at our favorite Don Martin 'toon we've seen a thousand times, this is a feel good investment.

Alternately a cheaper and more technology savy solution to see Don's work is the Absolutely MAD DVD, which has 600+ issues of Mad Magazine - Don Martin and all - veiwable on your computer through Acrobat.Absolutely MAD Magazine - 50+ Years

The memory is an amazing thing. Most days I can't remember where I left my car keys and yet I can vividly remember events from decades ago like they were yesterday. One of those memories, I was probably around 12 or 13 at the time, found me at my local bookstore checking out the new comics. I had some extra money from Christmas and it was burning a hole in my pocket. Then I saw a book featuring Don Martin strips from Mad Magazine. This wasn't one of those little paperbacks but rather a magazine-sized book that I think cost around four or five bucks. Considering these were the days when comics were around 30 or 35 cents that was a LOT of money to me. I spent the night by my friend's house that night, cracking up all night reading Martin's wild strips.

The stable of cartoonists that Mad Magazine boasted throughout the 50's through the 80's was simply amazing: Jack Davis, Dave Berg, Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragones, Antonio Prohias, and, of course, Don Martin, the man known as Mad's Maddest Artist! These men were all geniuses in their own right and all had very lengthy tenures with Mad. Martin worked for the magazine for an incredible 32 years from 1956 through 1988. Martin's strips were the most off-kilter and insanely silly things I had ever seen and I've been a fan ever since I first saw his work. His characters are instantly recognizable by their droopy eyes, round bulbous noses, and the trademark hinged feet.

Now there have been many artist collections, summary sampling's of greatest work and things like that, but here we have something most unique. This isn't a sampling or a best of type of work...this is EVERYTHING...the whole nine yards, the whole shebang...the whole...well, you get the idea. Contained in this massive, two-volume set is every piece of art that Don Martin did for Mad Magazine in 32 years: every strip, every cover, every poster, and everything else...all slammed between the pages of two, 500 page hardcover books, presented in chronological order. The volumes come in a sturdy slipcase, with each side bearing Martin's take on a famous work of art.

It's interesting to see Martin's earliest strips. It would be a couple of years before he really refined the "Don Martin look" and find his niche in the Magazine. Probably the first strip which had that look was 1957's `The Unfortunate Part of Feeding Pigeons Homemade Popcorn". Here, three men are sitting on a park bench feeding the pigeons. They notice that the pigeons only seem to like the popcorn being tossed out by the man in the middle...soon the pigeons are swarming as well as the people. This is the best popcorn they have ever had! They wonder what his secret is and he explains, casually, it's made with arsenic because he hates pigeons....The man strolls away leaving bodies of people and pigeons everywhere. This is the kind of wacky, often macabre strip that Martin became famous for.

Early on, Martin did recurring strips such as Future TV Ads and Strange Tales. It was in the mid-60's when Martin began to name most of his strips with simple titles like "One Day in the Jungle", "One Night in a Restaurant", "One Day in the Park", and then advanced onto more specifically titled "One Late Afternoon in South Dakota" and One Rainy Afternoon in the Black Forest". Bottom line is that no matter where or what time, Martin had a strip for it, seemingly.

Martin's cartooning style wasn't his only trademark. Just as important was his impossible sound effects. No one made sound effects like Martin...a steamroller rolling over an eyeball makes a "Sklork!"; "Thwa-Dap!" and "Spla-Map" are the sounds made when a black belt ant slams the guy who tried to step on him, on the pavement; and only Martin could envision the "Geeen" which is the sound of Plasticman giving the finger to a guy on the 32nd floor of a building. That's Gold! For the sound effect enthusiast the inside front and back covers are loaded with all of Don's unique noises.

Some of my favorite Martin strips were the parodies he did of popular movie and TV shows. These lengthier strips gave Martin a chance to really showcase his plotting ability. There was "Conehead the Barbiturate" from 1982, Outtakes from Superman III and Return of the Jedi, and Star Trek III the Search for Spock. For 32 years, Martin always managed to keep his work fresh and funny.

The books are high quality, glossy stock paper and bound in heavy covers. At $150 it's a hefty price tag although online sellers like Amazon discount it for under a hundred bucks so it is a very good deal. Imagine...owning everything Don Martin did for Mad Magazine, now that is priceless!

REVIEWED BY TIM JANSON

Splork. Glorb. Splak. Blif. Glink. FooWoom. Goosht. Spaloosh. Fushshklork. Kloon. Fween. Thoomp. Furshglurk. Shuka. Shuka. Shuka. It's great.

I have been a reader of MAD since 1983. I remember discovering it at the age of 10, and well, I still read it currently. However it is not the same since the one and only Don Martin left its pages and more recently left us all behind. Now I can relive my childhood and experience the magic that is a Don Martin cartoon.

From his early work which I have mostly never seen before to his classics from the 70s and 80s, it's all here. Over 1000+ pages of cartoon after cartoon in these two massive, and did I mention HEAVY, books. This 2 volume set is must have for MAD fans, and looks great next to my similar Complete Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes collections. It's a shame his work from Cracked Magazine in the '90s is not featured to be a 100% collection of his past, but this is all his MAD articles at least so that is good enough for me.

If you've never experienced Don Martin or want to flashback to the "good ol' days" of MAD when it was still in black and white with no ads, you must own this collection. And get it from Amazon before the price goes up. It is worth the $150 cover price, but for under $100 right now, it's a real steal!

Before I get into my review I would like to comment on what other reviewers have said about the quality of printing in this set of books. To me the quality is excellent. They are a beautifully done set that I am totally pleased with. Those criticizing it sound like those people who have a zillion dollar hi fi system, and think it constantly needs tweaking because the oboe sounds don't seem to be totally accurate.


These two Don Martin books are filled with the most ridiculous, eccentric, loony, bizarre people (and animals) to ever populate this planet. Or are they really from this planet? His humor is hard to describe, but think of it as a demented version of The Far Side. Of course DM's real claim to fame is his sound effects neologisms. Never has one man coined as many descriptive terms as he has. When a tree falls in the forest it doesn't go "thud", it goes "kakroosh". Punch a guy in the eye and it sounds like "sproingdoink."

If you are the type that thinks the cartoons in the Sunday paper Parade magazine are funny, then this book is not for you. Not even the New Yorker would dare to present the reader with such silly, dopey stuff. You have to be a bit strange to buy these books. That's why I rushed out and got my copy.

Just picked this up for $25 ($16 after member discount and coupon) at Barnes and Noble. My local store had three remaindered copies - probably because the shrinkwrap around the books was ripped. The books though were in perfect condition. Worth taking a look for.

I never thought I could get enough Don Martin. Until this deluxe limited edition collection came out. I have been a fan since his early days at Mad (I had the Mad paperbacks, the 50s were a wee bit early for me) but still remember laughing out loud over his insane masterpieces.

Only two issues. First, since they were not actually in Mad, Fester BesterTester and his sidekick Karbunkle and Captain Klutz are not represented here. Some of his best work.

And in this format you actually get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of his work! Not a bad thing but you would be hard pressed to get through this in one sitting.

I read through the Amazon reviews for this edition of Don Martin's work, and don't understand how anyone could rate this beautifully designed library with anything less that 5 stars. I first saw this edition by accident while almost walking past it in a recent visit to a bookstore. I grew up during the end of the 60's and 70's, so MAD magazine was a parent-banned delicacy my friends and I could pass to each other between classes in the 6th-8th grades. Don Martin's artwork and hilarious stories were our favorites (except for, perhaps, the fold-in back cover). The price for this box set was a little high - even for this gorgeous edition - but I quickly forked over the $75.00 (half the bookstore price) for it through Amazon. Contrary to the reviewer who only gave this a single star (in the words of Don Martin, "What The @$#!?")? This heavy-weighted, cloth-bound box comes stuffed with two gloriously published volumes of every thing Don Martin ever created. The semi-gloss pages are heavy-weighted bond, and crisply printed with a dark neutral gray for black and white images, and bright, full color ink for his colored artwork; some of them spanning two pages. New fans of Don Martin need to remember he didn't have Photoshop back in the day, so the prints in these volumes reflect their original medium, such as watercolor, guache, and simple pen and ink. There are also some preliminary sketches for his most popular cartoons. These images are slightly faded from being archived for years and years in the MAD vault, but what a BONUS to even see them included! I highly recommend this edition, especially for fans of Don Martin (or MAD, in general). You will not be the least bit disappointed. I have very high standards - even for a cheapskate like me - and this beautiful, colorful, and well-designed edition just doesn't cease to please. I have it prominantly displayed in my own home library, and it always draws visitors to it. I've had no complaints yet!