Don Martin a Cartoon Original

Don Martin has to be in the top 5 most original cartoonists in history.
One of the reasons I started my blog was because it was depressing to see how inbred modern cartoons had become and I figured if I started posting a wide variety of cartoon styles that had life, individuality, humor and skill that maybe the next generation of cartoonists would have a wider assortment of inspirations that just the last 30 years of decadent Disney and Saturday morning cartoons.
I have not been posting as much stuff as I used to and that's mainly because there are so many great blogs now that do better what mine was for.
These Don Martin images are from ComicCrazys, one of my favorite blogs.
To me, blogs are even better than books because the people who make them actually like the work itself and are generously willing to share it with the rest of the world. Fans put up the cartoons and comics in all their glory - unlike so many books that hide tiny thumbnail drawings within a vast sea of boring text written by pompous non-cartoonists who want to find some way to intellectualize the work -rather than just showing you the work and letting you enjoy it for what it is.
Don Martin's drawing style is even funnier than his jokes and that's what makes cartooning different than other forms of humor.

I don't anyone who draws funnier 'tards than Martin.



This feeding the pigeon comic story is a true work of cartoon art.

Chris Lopez shares tons of great and unique cartoon art with the world. I hope it helps to break the cycle of hideous stylistic inbreeding we have been suffering from for too long.
http://comicrazys.com/2011/06/20/more-of-the-completely-mad-don-martin-best-cartoons-from-mad-magazine-don-martin/

Is This A Work Of Cartoon Genius?

I must be one of the world's biggest cartoon fans, but rarely do I find a cartoon that I think is brilliant. Something that covers all the great things a cartoon can do that separates it from other forms of entertainment. I think this Don Martin comic meets and exceeds the highest cartoon criteria.

First, it's drawn funny. Really funny - and in a totally unique style. I love the early Martin stuff best because it hadn't found a formula yet. It's still searching and so has less rules and more variety.
The concept of the story is really funny. The people are generic (for Martin's world) but still bizarre - and meant to be typical normal humans. That whole approach is so unique in itself! We're supposed to instantly identify with these everyday normal people that only exist in Don Martin's world.
Martin is presenting a gag and story that couldn't possibly be done as well in any other medium- including animation.
The gag is built around a growing crowd. Crowds don't work in animation. Imagine the amount of time it took to draw just one of these crazy panels. Now multiply that by 24 frames a second for film. Then having to animate each of these characters doing something somewhat different than each other - as is indicated in the poses. This would not only take Herculean labor, it would also be totally wasted because all the stuff would fly by so fast you couldn't take it all in. With still pictures, you can slowly go through the panel and see every funny detail.
These birds are stylized and hilarious at the same time. They work both as a group, and as individuals. You can stare at each of these panels forever and find humor within the overall gag situation and in the minute details. Each little character is drawn with thought. Martin didn't just draw a ton of birds in the same pose.
The gag builds to more and more heights of preposterousness. It is structured.
Goddamn, these are some weird creatures! What a mind!

I love the crazy eagerness of the human characters eating the delicious popcorn.
Nice stubbly chicken butt.

The frenzy keeps on building, even when you think it can't get more nutty.



Wouldn't you kill to have this painted as a mural on your wall?

And of course he ends on a morbid joke, because he is aiming this at little kids to get them in trouble with their Moms. This psychology makes the comic even funnier.A masterpiece of inspired and original cartooning!

One more thought: Don Martin doesn't design his humans to keep up to date with what is supposed to be "cool" or hip. No 'tude. His characters exist in a timeless world so that anyone can identify with their situations. The fact that they are so uncool makes it all the more pure and inviting. We know he isn't trying to talk down to us, like so many cartoons today made by nerds who are trying to be cool.

Don Martin's Pigeons are Coming

Don Martin must be one of the very few print cartoonists that can actually make you laugh out loud.

Most of the famous strips and comics are meant to give you a mild pleasurable feeling, maybe evoke a wry smile, but I can't think of a lot of them that cause belly laughs. I'm not sure why that is. Animated cartoons at one time aimed at making us laugh out loud. Comics that star animated characters don't aim at making you laugh at all, which is very curious. Bugs Bunny in the comics is a completely different personality in comic books and comic strips than on the screen. He's not even a wiseacre. Is there some law in comics that says you can't be as funny as your animated counterpart?

I think that every medium unconsciously develops an overall standard and set of expectations that differ from other mediums-even related ones. Every once in awhile, someone sneaks through the system and shatters all those expectations and invents something new. Then of course the comic editors and cartoon execs change the formula and look for new people who can copy the latest guy who changed the rules against their wills. This seems to be a rarer and rarer occurrence today. Comic strips are at the lowest standards of quality and entertainment expectations today. Editors must be more restrictive and conservative than ever.

I collect a lot of old time strips like Peanuts, B.C., Popeye and more. I read them over and over again and like them a lot. But they don't make me laugh out loud the way Tex Avery and Popeye cartoons do. Dennis The Menace did once in awhile when I was a kid.

You might think "well maybe it's harder to make something really funny without sound and movement." Don Martin disproves that theory. I wonder why he never got picked up for daily newspaper strips? Probably because he didn't fit the mold in the editors' minds.

Coming up...

Don Martin - In a Department Store

Continued from....
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2009/01/don-martin-in-department-store-4.html

Boy, Don Martin sure was nice to kids. He just knew what we thought was funny.
Women's undergarments are inherently funny and we would have to read gags like these under the bed. We really thought we were getting away with something.
I wonder why so few animated cartoons are this purely entertaining? Maybe Sponge Bob is the last one to try to do crazy stuff that kids naturally crave.

Hot wet fertilizer is good kid's fodder too of course.
If you go back and read this whole story, you'll see that there is no story - not in the way animation execs and "writers" think stories should be - predictable. Do Martin loves to set things up to make you think the story is going to be about something predictable, the takes you into left field.
There's a place for plots and resolutions if you are good at writing them and can make them actually entertaining, but I think most kids would take pure controlled lunacy over formulaic animated cartoon plots any day.





In the classic tradition of the Three Stooges, there is no resolution or happy ending to this great story. The protagonist (Fester Bestertester) just gets shot off into the distance and we don't know what happens to him. We also forgot his best friend Karbunkle.
In an animation studio you'd be made to go back and explain everything. you'd also have to explain Bestertester's and Karbunkle's personal histories and why they have the personalities they do, what traumatic events in their childhoods caused them to be such unbalanced creatures. We'd need some pathos too. By the time you stuff your stories with all this filler, there's no time left for "hot Wet Fertilizer", Fat Lady or lingerie jokes.

And the latest horror that is inflicted on cartoon creators is "aspiration". Execs in the last few years have decided that kids want to watch cartoons about characters they can look up to, rather than laugh at. I can't imagine anything so counter-intuitive. "The Three Aspirational Stooges".

Don Martin - In a Department Store 4

I love the gravity of this situation






more to come...


next: An Age Of Extreme Conservatism - pt 1