Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37937 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-22
• Format: Box set
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1200 pages

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

Customer Reviews

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

"DOONT!"
Here it is! The prodigious volumes of Mad's Maddest artist! The Bible of Don Martin's talents!

We grew up with his art! All those bulbous noses, all those hinged flat feet! And especially, all thoe outrageous sound effect words like "Schtoink" made Don Martin's cartoons come to life and left us laughing our guts out!

Be prepared! This volume of two books is extremely HEAVY! This is the ultimate coffee table set to leave out so guests will see that you have not left behind your sense of humor!

Martin's work before 1960 was pretty good, but it lacked the style and silliness of his post 1960 trademark look of the characters and situations. However this volume covers ALL his work published in Mad Magazine until he left Mad in 1985. This set is the virtual library of all our favorite Mad cartoonist.

Although Don Martin has left this mortal coil, this book brings him and his work back to life, to cherish over and over again!

All the Don Martin you'll ever need, well almost...
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.