Don Martin in Buster?    (28.05.10)
  

   So we're currently waving a flag for "Buster" comic, a Great British
   Weekly that would, could and should have been celebrating its 50th 
   birthday this week.... "Buster"... The last of the classic fun comic
   weeklies from the Fleetway stable... It's up there at the top of the
   UK comics tree, alongside "The Beano", so it is... We've put up the
   bunting, and saluted its uniquely wonderful Britishness...

   But here's a thing. A tidbit. An aside, if you will. You see, The Hound
   has recently returned to his own "Buster" collection, to soak up
   some of the nostalgia. And whilst he was flicking through his back
   issues, he came upon an extraordinary series of pages featuring
   some swizzle-flabbiting single-panel gags from an All-time Great
   who was most definitely not from this side of the pond. A "Mad"
   intruder, if you will.

   The name in question is the great, incomparable Don Martin, one
   of the darned near legendary troop of American artists who took
   Mad Magazine to its sublime comic heights in the 50s, 60s and
   70s. "Mad" is the quintessential American college mag of that era
   (Yes, yes, we had our own British version too, but let's not muddy
   the waters here). Martin created his very own dinkalinking dictionary
   of stupid sound effects to accompany his toons, and his hinge-footed,
   stork-legged, cross-gendered foneboning freaks are unmistakable.
   Yet here they are in "Buster" comic. They're festooned across the
   "Buster Giggles"pages in the Spring/Summer editions of 1974.
   Readers would send in their jokes and japes and the "Buster"
   artists would illustrate a weekly bunch. Each winning entrant
   received a generous £1.00 prize. Imagine that. A Don Martin
   cartoon of your gag, and pocket money too...

   Here's one such spread from 25th May 1974, with thumbs leading
   to larger scans for you:

     

   Okay, let's put on our deerstalkers and investigate this further.
   The freaks are there (page one). So are the hinged feet (page two).
   But there aren't any of those famous sound effects. And I don't
   know about you, and I might be well wide of the mark, but there's
   something just a little bit off about these. There's the distinct
   possibility that these are actually ghosted creations, with some
   upstart playfully lampooning the Don Martin style. Oh, but that
   only deepens the mystery for us...

   Hmm. Don Martin, or Martin-types in "Buster" comic. What do
   you think? More importantly, what do you know? If you can
   solve the mystery please feel free to put this dawg to rights...
   
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