MAD's Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin (MAD's Greatest Artists Series) [BOX SET] (Hardcover)

~ Don Martin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Michael Dirda

Back in the early 1960s, any young boulevardier between the ages of 10 and 15 knew that the greatest publication in all the world was Mad magazine. Oh, Sick and Cracked might have their aficionados, but for the true connoisseur of humor and satire these Mad wannabes functioned largely as backups, temporary palliatives to tide one over until next month's Mad appeared at the corner drugstore. In those days an issue cost 25 cents (cheap!) and featured not only the smiling freckled face of Alfred E. Neuman, but also the double-crossing antics of Sergio Aragones' Spy vs. Spy, parodies in verse by the ingenious Frank Jacobs, and the ever-popular send-ups of current television shows and popular films. Best of all, the 1960s were also the heyday of Don Martin, the comedic draftsman celebrated in these two weighty and essential volumes.

Essential, that is, for boys, even those boys who through some strange, fiendish twist of fate worthy of "The Twilight Zone" now find themselves in their 40s, 50s and 60s. It must be admitted that few girls, of whatever age, have ever fathomed the delirious appeal of Mad humor. Obviously, one's dopey sisters could hardly be expected to grasp the sheer genius of a name like Elwood Pleebis, Fornis J. Plebney, or Horace Veeblefetzer. But even those girls one kind of, sort of, liked might actually fail to roll on the ground with uncontrollable laughter at a political poster that proclaimed: "Help the mentally incompetent. Re-elect your congressman!" Of course, no girl, and certainly no mother, could be expected to appreciate the risqué insightfulness of "Snap Ploobadoof" -- the sound of "Wonder Woman releasing her Amazon brassiere."

Don Martin made up that sound, and that poster, and those names. But, as Gary Larson emphasizes in his foreword to The Completely Mad Don Martin, the man most truly dazzled in his drawing. His jowly, cross-eyed characters stare at us from the page with an utterly sublime imbecility, unaware of their smug silliness, confident that they are in control, the captains of their destiny and the masters of any situation, no matter how complex or improbable. In fact, Martin's characters -- half of them named Fonebone -- resemble and behave like the Three Stooges, but Stooges without the least modicum of intelligence. Martin's naively stupid fairy-tale princes, incompetent surgeons, hapless Tarzans and demonic dentists generally end up with cracked skulls and dazed what-hit-me grins. Whatever happens to them, though, they never, ever see it coming. But the reader does -- and this is part of the pleasure of Martin's humor: Like silent-era comedians, his characters toss a banana onto the sidewalk, then slip on it.

In these bountiful pages, one can duly enjoy variation after variation of Rapunzel, discover dozens of dismaying outcomes when the Princess kisses a frog (in one, a frog kisses the new prince back into frogginess), and return again and again to a firing squad or a medieval dungeon or an innocent-seeming encounter at a park bench. Many sets of drawings bear generic titles: "One Fine Day at the Corner of South Finster Boulevard and Fonebone Street" or "Early One Morning on a Desert Island" or, less simply, "One Night in the Acme Ritz Central Arms Waldorf Plaza Statler Hilton Grand Hotel."

My favorite single drawing -- one I remember from boyhood -- is "An Evening in the City." A stubble-bearded guy with rolled-up shirtsleeves peers out of an office window and says, "I tell you, Mrs. Frimp, I'm getting sick and tired of this Rat Race!" At the next window the blowsy Mrs. Frimp answers, "I know what you mean, Mr. Eck! We're all getting sick of it!" Below the couple, one sees the street: full of large, very determined rats, in track suits, running a marathon through the city. Mrs. Frimp then adds, needlessly, "Besides . . . a 7-day Rat Race is such a stupid idea in the first place!!"

In a great many of Martin's multi-paneled features, a character will eventually achieve a moment of almost epileptic self-destruction. (See, for instance, the boggle-eyed gentleman wearing a green zoot suit on the poster titled "Fight Demeaning Plebney.") These frenetic epiphanies are usually accompanied by Martin's endlessly inventive sounds -- "Durp," "Faglork," "Kloonk," "Thwop," "Skroinch," "Glong," "Ook Ook" and many others. (In the final panel, the frazzled and wide-eyed character often looks directly out from the page, as if asking the reader to share in his bewilderment and discomfiture.) Martin's colleagues and admirers revere his onomatopoeic diction almost as much as they do his drawings of slack-jawed urban yokels.

The Completely Mad Don Martin has only one drawback: It doesn't reprint the artist's non-Mad paperbacks, starting with Don Martin Steps Out. These usually contained three pictorial "novellas," most memorably the DeMille-like epic of Fester Bestertester and Karbuncle in "The Hardest Head in the World." But apart from that lacuna, all fans of Don Martin's genius will rejoice in this double-decker omnibus. Yes, it's $150, but for what you're getting, it's $150 (cheap!).

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Review

"...fans of Don Martin's genius will rejoice in this double-decker omnibus." -- Washington Post

"Balm for the funnybone, bruising for the back." -- Rocky Mountain News, November 24, 2007

"Can't see enough of the magazine and cartoonist that kept you sane through your coming-of-age in the '60s and '70s? How about two volumes and more than 1,000 pages? ... Exquisitely brewed for the coffee table." -- Philadelphia Inquirer, December 16, 2007

"In short, it's a masterpiece befitting a genius." -- The Sunday Star-Times, December 2, 2007

"The Completely MAD Don Martin" by Don Martin (Running Press) THWACK! That's the sound of this 25-pound, two-volume laugh riot dropped from 25 feet up. It's filled with everything Martin drew for MAD, in his slapstick-y style, during his 30-plus years in the mag's subversive universe." -- NY Post, December 16, 2007

"The Completely MAD Don Martin" is gorgeously printed. For the MAD maven, it's the gift of the season." -- The Houston Chronicle, December 2, 2007

"This mammoth two-volume hardcover set collects every single piece of art that 'MAD's Maddest Artist' created from 1957 to 1987 - a 1,000-page body of work that displays astounding consistency, as well as provoking endless laughs. Illustrating absurdist gags that routinely bordered on the berserk, Martin's artwork featured a keen and detail-rich comedic sense. Terrific stuff: no wonder he's regarded as one of the all-time greats." -- The First Post, October 5, 2007

You can have your high-tone, filled-with-stunning-color-plates retrospectives of Goya and Picasso -- none come close to "The Completely MAD Don Martin" ("1,000 pages, 2 volumes, 1 slipcase, 25 pounds, $150 -- Cheap!"). This insanely special gift to the ages from Running Press has every piece of art that MAD's Michelangelo published during his 30-year run at the magazine, plus letters, sketches, photos and an intro by the "Far Side's" Gary Larson.

The jokes still work, the visual cues are timeless, the artwork identifiable from a city block away. This is like watching Dimaggio, Hope & Crosby, Paul Robeson -- clips from our collective memory bank. Personal favorites: The "One Afternoon ..." and "Scenes We'd Like to See" panels.

$150 is too much, you say? Genius has no price -- you'll get more benefit from this than that Starbucks habit. -- The San Diego Union-Tribune, October 14, 2007 Sunday

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1200 pages
• Publisher: Running Press; Reprint edition (October 22, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762430508
• ISBN-13: 978-0762430505
• Product Dimensions: 13.7 x 10.3 x 3.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,941 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mad's greatest artist finally gets his showcase, October 18, 2007

By	Brian Reaves (Anniston, AL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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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.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An ambitious effort, and they almost pull it off, October 25, 2007

By	Bretzky "Bretzky" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

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.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Long Overdue Trophy to the Cartoon Master, November 6, 2007

By	Charles Moyer (Souderton PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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