Category Archives: illustrations
The Ultra-Mad Madness of Don Martin
Born in 1931 and lasting in this crazy, mixed-up world until the year 2000, Don Martin was a mixy, crazed-up cartoonist for Mad Magazine who would come to be billed as “Mad Magazine’s Maddest Artist.” His greatest work was done during his Mad years, from 1956 (the year I was born… not a coincidence, I firmly believe) until his retirement in 1988. (*** I was reminded by Martin’s wife that he did not retire then. He just left Mad Magazine for places like Cracked where he was treated better.***) And I learned a lot from him by reading his trippy toons in Mad from my childhood until my early teacher-hood.
His style is uniquely recognizable and easily identifiable. Nobody cartoons a Foon-man like Don Martin.
The googly eyes are always popped in surprise. The tongue is often out and twirling. Knees and elbows always have amazingly knobbly knobs. Feet have an extra hinge in them that God never thought of when he had Adam on the drawing board.
And then there is the way that Martin uses sound effects. Yes, cartoons in print don’t make literal sounds, but the incredible series of squeedonks and doinks that Martin uses create a cacophony of craziness in the mind’s ear.
And there is a certain musicality in the rhyming of the character names he uses. Fester Bestertester was a common foil for slapstick mayhem, and Fonebone would later stand revealed by his full name, Freenbeen I. Fonebone.
And, of course, one of his most amazingly adventurous ne’er-do-well slapstick characters was the immeasurable Captain Klutz!
Here, there, and everywhere… on the outside he wears his underwear… it’s the incredible, insteadable, and completely not edible… Captain Klutz!
If you cannot tell it from this tribute, I deeply love the comic genius who was Don Martin, Mad Magazine’s Maddest Artist. Like me he was obsessed with nudists and drawing anatomy. Like me he was not above making up words with ridiculous-sounding syllables. And like me he was also a purple-furred gorilla in a human suit… wait! No, he wasn’t, but he did invent Gorilla-Suit Day, where people in gorilla suits might randomly attack you as you go about your daily life, or gorillas in people suits, or… keep your eye on the banana in the following cartoon.
So, even though I told you about Bruce Timm and Wally Wood and other toon artists long before I got around to telling you about Don Martin, that doesn’t mean I love them more. Don Martin is wacky after my own heart, and the reason I spent so much time immersed in Mad Magazine back in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.
Filed under artists I admire, artwork, cartoon review, cartoons, comic book heroes, goofiness, humor, illustrations
Clovis
This is my most recent illustration for He Rose on a Golden Wing.
His name is Clovis. He is either a faun, or a ghost of boy who killed himself. But he is not real. He is only seen and heard by the main characters because they ate some marijuana-laced brownies.
Filed under illustrations, imagination
Toonerville Traffic
I had the good fortune recently to find some of my boxed-up HO train pieces that had been packed away since 2004 when we moved from South Texas to the Dallas area. Now, in these photos I took of Toonerville, not all of it was part of the uncovered treasure. But some of it most sincerely was. The people out in front of Mike Minskey’s Tavern are from a set of unpainted 1/78th scale German townfolk from the 1880’s. You see them posed here in front of the Batmobile parked in front of the Teapot Clockhouse.
Here you can see the two F-9 Diesels from the SuperChief (I have a thing for Sante Fe Railroad engines and rolling stock). I parked them next to the Snowflake Express which you may have seen before, since I bought it in a garage sale after we moved here.
The multi-colored bus that you see behind the Miss Amy Wortle Boarding House is actually the Partridge Family tour bus from the TV show my sisters loved in the 1970’s.
Here’s a view of the front of that same TV bus as it sits between Miss Wortle’s place and Eggbert Egghead’s Egg House. Dabney Egghead is the boy in the sailor suit showing off his brand new velocipede.
The old lady crossing in front of the Toonerville Trolley is Granny Wortle (who controls all the money in the family… I named a lot of the residents after people in Fontaine Fox’s comic strip of the 1930’s).
Here’s the back end of the trolley as it passes Digby Davies’ Pet Shop and the purple eggplant house where Gilbert Dornhoeffer and his seven vegetarian children live and build snowmen regularly.
On the other side of Eggbert Egghead’s Egg House you can see Butch and Marcia Niland’s VW mini-bus next to the old shoe-woman’s house which she built from a gigantic pink-and-white high-topped sneaker. Digby moved his velocipede, either to get it in the picture once again, or to get closer to the Scary Clown’s Ice Cream Truck while they’re still serving Eskimo Pies in midwinter.
So now you can plainly see that Mickey finding old boxes of toys that he thought were lost is not a good thing for Toonerville traffic in general, and definitely not good for Toonerville rush hour.
Novel Writing Going Forward
The Necromancer’s Apprentice is now finished and being edited for publication. So, the chapter by chapter serialization is now ended. The previous work AeroQuest 4 : The Amazing Aero Brothers is also finished and awaiting final edits for publication.
So, I need a new book to put on this Tuesday blog-spot.
Most of the novels I have put through this Tuesday process have been like AeroQuest 4, novel projects with big problems that require a lot of rewriting and editorial work.
Since I finished AeroQuest 4, I have been using Tuesdays for my main writing project, the first two being relatively short novellas. The most recent one was intended to be a novella, but turned into a short novel. If I follow the original plan, the next book I will use here is AeroQuest 5 : It Ain’t Over Yet.
The second choice would be to use my next main work in progress. That would be some version of this book;
But this novel is going to be a lot longer than any of the things I have been using for this purpose. Cantos or Chapters are a lot longer than is wise to use as a daily post. Do I use smaller chunks of chapters?
I have doubts about this method, but the post for next week would already be written if I do that.
So, by next Tuesday… I will have an answer.
Filed under humor, illustrations, novel plans, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney
What Makes a Child Beautiful?
Loving others makes you beautiful.
Filed under artwork, Celebration, humor, illustrations, kids, Paffooney
Story Illustrations on Art Day
One of the things I am increasingly doing is illustrating my novels and essays in the pages of books published on Amazon.
More from the work-in-progress, The Necromancer‘s Apprentice;
What follows are published illustrations;
Recipes for Gingerbread Children
One of the glorious things about ebooks is the fact that they allow colored illustrations which will print as black and white in the paperback version.
These, of course, are only a small sampling of the many illustrations in my books, especially the more recent books.
Filed under artwork, humor, illustrations, Paffooney
Portraits of Norwall Kids
Today’s Art-Day Saturday post is about the pictures I have drawn to establish in my mind the characters that make up the fictional world of Norwall, Iowa. Specifically, the kids in my YA novels.
I do manage character development and detailed descriptions by creating early on a picture of what the character looks like for me.
Filed under artwork, characters, humor, illustrations, kids, novel writing, Paffooney, Pirates
The Latest Character Portrait
Yes, I drew Blueberry Bates one more time.
I drew her as an illustration for the novella I am currently working on, Horatio T. Dogg, Super Sleuth.
The original is in pen and ink, shaded on the Microsoft paint program that came with the computer.
She is not a main character in this story. But she is a key character in the plot.
The essential details about the character Blueberry Bates include the fact that she was named by her older sisters. She was born a blue baby, her Infant Methemoglobinemia (Blue Baby Syndrome) was caused by too little oxygen in her blood. Her mother died during childbirth. Her father never quite recovered from the loss, leading her sisters and her aunt to raise her as a girl even though she was born with a penis. When x-rayed as a young child, she was found to have internal female organs, including ovaries and uterus. Blueberry is highly imaginative, loves to draw with colored pencils, and pursued Mike Murphy to be her boyfriend until he finally gave in and fell hopelessly in love with her at the edge of ten and a half. She is based on two different real transgender students I encountered as a teacher.
Here is the final, color version of the new portrait.
Filed under characters, illustrations, Paffooney, pen and ink
Catch a Falling Star 
Living in the World I Once Drew
It is normal for the world we live in to inspire us to draw pictures of it. But architects do the opposite. They imagine a world we could live in, and then build it.
Sometimes, like in the picture above, I draw real people in imaginary places. Other times I draw imaginary people and put them in real places.
Sometimes I put imaginary people in imaginary places. (I photo-shopped this planet myself.)
In fiction, I am re-casting my real past as something fictional, so the places I draw with words in descriptions need to be as real as my amber-colored memory can manage.
When I use photos, though, I have to deal with the fact that over time, places change. The church does not look exactly like it did in the 1980s when this drawing is set.
Drawing things I once saw, and by “drawing” I mean “making pictures,” is how I recreate myself to give my own life meaning.
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Filed under artwork, autobiography, collage, commentary, humor, illustrations, imagination, Paffooney, photo paffoonies
Tagged as Saturday Art Day