The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 393

SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 2000 A17 LOS ANGELES TIMES Obituary to vfcxn? 0Qnxp A Don Martin; Cartoonist Exemplified kad Magazine in Sight and Sound Creative Professionals Instead Of Clerks Unlike art supply stores and other framers, you'll never find a clerk at FrameStore. Only highly trained professional designers. One look at your finished piece, and you'll see the difference great design can make. Your Value Of A Lifetime 1 15 .122. Salt At FrameStore we want you to be a lifetime client.

And here's your incentive. When you compare design, quality, craftsmanship, and price nobody comes close to FrameStore 's values. 3 USE THE COUPON BELOW AND SEE THE FRAMESTORE DIFFERENCE COUPON A Brentwood Culver City JE3 Ejk 11911 San Vicente (310)4711193 3210 Helms Ave. (310)857-4531 19 t0 You Can See The Difference Beverly Hub 9400 Santa Monica Blvd. ustok.

Enclno Long Beach 17200 Ventura BM 6431 LPac Cow Hwy. (818)3850086 (562)3964746 Manhattan Beach Marina Del Key 1 130 Sepuheda Blvd. 2570 Lincoln Blvd. (310)545-6323 (310)823525 Studio City Torrance (At Canon) Free valet parking (310)271-7940 Northridge Pasadena Santa Monka 9002 Tampa Blvd. 504 S.

Lake Ave. 929 W.Olympic (818)718-1830 (626)440-0933 (310)314 1954 Thousand Oab W. Hollywood Welt LA. Ail stores open FRAMING 12265 Ventura Blvd. Mon.

Fri. 10-7 18425 Hawthorne 81 111 N. Westlake Blvd. 8023 Beverly Blvd. 11301 W.

Olympic Sat. A Sun. 10-6 (818)755-0070 (51t)371-M5 (D05JW7-O707 (323)3-5301 (310)477-8118 'oner Bood on over 500 selected moukliniis. Must present this COI PON at time of purchase. Not valid with any other offer.

Offer valid thru January 30, 2000 LA01 08 ELAINE WOO 'POftMES STAFF WRITER inn Known as Mad magazine's artist, Don Martin drew boobs cavorting heads under their arms, clowns who tap-danced into and insects in boxer shorts who micracked jokes. wpf His sound effects were legend-cd'iary. In Martin's world, people didn't buildings didn't fall and ob-tTfjects weren't thrown: They blorted i.oand skroinched and katoonged. The 'humor was sick, black and slapstick: Mona Lisa, in one famous was shown looking enigmatic, euphoric, then relieved as she rose from a toilet and flushed. fans couldn't get enough of Martin's warped vision, which filled the irreverent publication for 30 years until 1987, when the artist got mad over the rights to his 'iwprk and jumped to another magazine.

"There's always been physical uis(iffering in comedy," Martin once said of the insanity that seeped from his brain to the pages of the satirical magazine founded in 1955 If toy William M. Gaines. "Even an-. cient clowns kicked each other in i the seat of the pants or hit each pother over the head. It's the same Joining in our time, just a little Stronger." "Martin, who died of cancer in a Miami hospital at the rtTge of 68, brought his first drawings to Mad in 1957.

He showed the; editor cartoons of humans with' square heads land double-jointed i feet and was "immediately snapped 3," sa' Frank Jacobs, a longtime Mad writer, who wrote "The Mad (World of William M. Gaines," published in 1972. For the next three decades, Martin was Mad's most popular artist. "He exemplified Mad more than 40,000 sq.ft. SHOWROOM severely restricted his vision.

He often had to use a magnifying glass to draw fine details. He had a license plate that read "SHTOINK," another of his trademark sounds. That may have been the only visible hint of his unusual occupation. Martin, according to his colleagues, was the antithesis of his characters, so shy and retiring that "you could be in the room with Don for an hour and not realize it," Ficarra said. He was attractive but unassuming, "totally uneccentric," Jacobs wrote in his book about Mad.

Born in Patterson, N.J., Martin showed an early talent for drawing. Growing up in the 1940s, he was influenced by the cartoons of Vergil Partch In Look magazine and by the drawings of Norman Rockwell. He was a graduate of the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. By 1987, Martin began to chafe under the magazine's policy of controlling the copyright to the work he did for it. A bitter legal battle ensued, with Martin demanding greater financial control of his work.

The magazine insisted that it legally owned his cartoons and all proceeds, including spinoffs such as T-shirts and posters. He ended his relationship with the magazine the same year. For a while his drawings appeared in Cracked magazine, where he negotiated a better deal. He retained the copyright to a dozen cartoon books he had written earlier. His illustrations began to appear in Europe and he was commissioned to produce animated campaign spots for Sweden's Social Democratic Party.

In 1994, he published the first edition of Don Martin, a cartoon magazine that featured a full range of his creations. The gags centered on characters with names like Dr. Dork, the Fabulous McWebbs and a dancing spider named Ickey. Although some comic connoisseurs questioned whether such vintage characters would appeal to the post-Beavis and Butt-head generation, Martin was unconcerned. "Is it funny? That's the only test I know when it comes to cartooning," he 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?" mm 7 Associated Press Don Martin as he appeared in an undated caricature of himself in Mad magazine. of sweat start to pop from the poor man's face until he perspires so violently that sposh it has turned into a geyser gushing up from his collar. The cartoon was called "One Fine Evening in Lovers' Lane." In other visual gags, his malformed humans get hit on the head with bricks that go fwak, a farmer sloshes through mud that goes ga-shpluct, a frying pan bounces off a man's face with a pwang, a woman sticks a cigarette in her husband's ear, singeing his brain with a sizafitz. "Don was the only guy who could have a man just walking down the street in the first panel and you're laughing before anything happens," said Mad co-editor John Ficarra.

There may have been some physical roots for Martin's twisted view of life. Since the early 1950s, the New Jersey-born artist had struggled with cornea problems that Bedroom Living Room Dining Room Home Office Accessories any other contributor, said Jacobs, a Burbank resident who serves as Mad's unofficial historian. "He was the only person who could take a lame premise and make it hysterical because of the drawing." In one cartoon, the first image invites laughter. A floozy in a bodice-baring dress is kissing a man with a rectangular head and anvil-shaped jaw who is tightly gripping the steering wheel of a convertible The woman's lips appear to deliver a jolt so strong that his hair curls up and lifts off his head. In subsequent frames, beads FN! FLTLWURE West Los Angeles (310)914-7801 11728 Olympic Blvd.

Torrance (310) 534-5800 2606 W. Sepulveda Blvd. Torrance 90S05 Los Angeles V0U64 Toul Bodi LoceUiom Fcladmplfxinpon and Hradineton Young SEES rr rwTi jt GREAT RATE PLANS' Monthly hdiided ID Additional (harp MtMtM WNkmdi ChorgN Alrtlm 19.99 20 250 .15 .49 29.99 100 500 .15 .39 nm men nnn rnn 49.99 360 500 .15 .30 79.99 700 500 or Free LD .25 99.99 1000 500 or Free LD .25 149.99 1500 500 or Free LD .20 199.99 2000 500 or Free LD .20 4 TRADE IN YOUR OLD MODEL FOR A SUPER MODEL! Get $50 off your airtime with any activation when you bring in any old SAVE UP TO GO 0 MOTOROLA NOKIA OEM WIRELESS ACCESSORIES Mot AC AdapChars-Select 6000Elite SPN4586P8 $24 "$5 Nokia NMH Battery 9000II -6LK45PB was $89 Mot NMH Battery-All Flip snn4583pb was $49 Mot NMH BatteryG5S0-SNN5346PB was $59 Nokia Desktp Charge119000- dchwb was $49 NOKIA 5190 Our best selling digital phone ever! AND OUR BEST OFFER EVER! Take an additional $50 off when you trade-in your old $170 Rebate' cellular or wireless pnoner 9I! I f'ct. I 7 (MOTOROLA L7082 Timeport Also: L7089 TIMEPORT Worldwide Connection NOKIA DIGITAL 6190 ERICSSON DIGITAL CF788768 Before It AQ0 i Before Rebate Before $10OM fsok PRICE SvPEDUCTIONUf Before Rebate 299s Rebate Rebate' 5(F i Rebate' -239M I Rebate' mi ftvTRADE-INjW SvTRADE-INJ PACIFIC BELl (Pacific Bell I Pacific Bell I fJFanftc Belli aPaciftcBeUl rfrrTTTTfn mmy wrrrmm wiwrmi nwi PRONTO (MOTOROLA FREE PAGER! 535 Frankl 1' Victoi kColima Moreno i VtV -e fs i Alrtlme Colorado 0 190th SI Ventura Ventura By (818)609-1551 1400 HWth (310)7(2-7903 Pogers require octivation. See below for total minimum (osR I restrictions.

6279 E. Spnng St U580 Colima Rd 6439CnogaAy 14b17Vemur9 8 4So.emM(i 2560 lincoln Blvd IW34 Hawthwne 819 Wnshire Blvd 1023? Magnolia Ay 9015 Central Ave (323) 669-1655 (562)627-0911 (626)944-9335 (118)715-7101 (818) 784-1191 (626)356-0001 (310) 206-6996 (310)305-2004 (310)370-787? (310)393-2966 (909)351-4000 (909)624-0770 Effective pnee after INSTANT ebate with activation. $20 octivation fee applies. All sales subject to applicable California soles tax on original MSRP of phone. Minimum service fee required is $1 9.95mo for 12 months for total of $240 for 1-year service contract not including taxes toll, long distance, rooming surcharges and $20 activation fee it oppfcable.

nice of phone without octivation will be up to $300 higher. Corner mav impose early termination lee of $150 if commitment is not satisfactorily completed. Early termination fee of up to $300 will be due Affordable Portables if deoctivotea befoie 180 days. "Offer available to qualifying customers that activate on qualifying service plans. Weekend minutes are from 1 2:01 am Saturday to 1 1 :59 pm Sunday, unused minutes do not roll over.

Offers for free weekend minutes, ends 13100. 'Remanufactwed to factory specifications. Full 1-year manufacturer warranty, "free roaming applies anywhere in the Pacific BellNevada Bell Wiieess Network but airtime, opplicoble long distonce charges taxes and surcharges oppfy. 'Original charger ond battery must be included with trade-in phone. GSM phones excluded horn trade-in offer 'Airtime charges apply for message retrieval.

Offer requites new service activation with 1 or 2 year agreement on eligible la area rate plans. $25 pader activation fee required. $2.95 ail rate opplies to first 3 months when payment is made by EFT. Basic air rotes apply thereafter. For 2 year commitment with totol airtime cost including activation of $137.80 due at time of purchase.

Price of pager without activation: Pronto is $69. Independent Study by Emerald Boy Systems, Inc. (June Aug. 1999). Additional charge may oppfy.

Affordable Portables is not responsible for omissions or typographic! errors. New ad supersedes previous ad..