2000 AD Online Forum

It is my immensely sad duty to inform everyone of the untimely death of my friend Martin Emond.
 Martin started out on Toxic! with Pat Mills' Accident Man, and did some painted Chopper stories for the Meg. With Gordon Rennie he did 'White Trash', which was recently reissued, and I think the themes in that comic of Rock, fun and frinendship capture the essence of Martin's character.
 Martin was working in LA and was about to start work on an animated series he had designed.
 My condolensces and love go out to all who knew him, he was one of our Artdroids.
Bye Martin,
your friend,
 Rufus Dayglo

thats terrible as i really liked some of the stuff that u mention and did used to pick up his work if i ever saw it while browsing :o(

Oh my goodness!

He was a great artist, one of my favourites. His toxic artwork was great. I always wanted to read what happened in "The Missionary" from Toxic. White Trash remains a favourite of mine, as does Accident Man.  

My condolensces.

My god, I'm seriously shocked by this.

Martin was one of the first artists I worked with, when we did White Trash together.  We also did a Punisher book for Marvel that unfortunately never saw the light of day. We became good friends, and kept in touch, even after he moved back to New Zealand.

Martin was a great artist, someone who could take an idea and make it 200% better by adding all sorts of crazy wild stuff of his own.  He never took to the comics industry after a few disheartening experiences with US publishers and dropped out of it, doing illustration work, running his own clothes deign line and, as Rufus said, animation projects.

The last time I heard from him, he was in a great mood, off to LA to work on one of these projects.  I was delighted that he was doing well, and am now very saddened to hear of his death.

he cant have been very old really???

thats is quite a shock

Sad news indeed.

Condolences to Martins friends and relatives.

Hey Gordon, I just tried to e-mail you about this but the address I had kept bouncing... guess you know already, though. I'm reeling somewhat, trying to take it in. We'd lost touch but I'd heard he was preparing to get married. Holy shit.

If any one doesn't recognise Martin's artwork, here's a page of his artwork from The Missionary.

Tragic news. My sympathies go to the family and friends of Martin. I remember seeing his artwork for the first time on White Trash and loved its style. It always reminded me of a graffiti artist who'd landed a job in comics and wouldn't have looked out of place on the side of a subway train or adorning the bottom of a skateboard. How apt then that some of his final comic work should be for Chopper.

that dead mans twist story is the only one of his ive read, and it left me thoughrally impressed.

sad news indeed

Blimey- that's a bit of a shock.  Bloke couldn't have been much older than me- he might even be younger.

I don't know what to say really.  The fact that he was preparing for his wedding makes the news seem even more sad.

I don't normally post to threads like this, because I don't see the point unless you actually knew the person in question- but I think I'll make an exception today.  I liked his work and whenever it crops up, I always get a real sense of nostalgia for my lost youth and all that.  Moving out for the first time and living in Hendon- going to the London Cartoon Centre- reading 'Toxic' on a packed tube...

What a shame.

that's terrible news.
condolences to all who new him.
Jock

I've just remembered a really good Martin story.

He went to LA to show his stuff to movie production companies and almost straight away got hired to do design work on Alien 4, which is the kind of gig most comic artists spend their lives dreaming about.

Martin jacked it in after about two days, saying it was completely boring, and the ideas they wanted him to work on were shit.  I think he told them that, too.

That's the kind of guy he was, always tried to do what he wanted to do, just wanted to work on stuff that meant something to him, and never much interested in career-climbing or self-aggrandisment.

And then there was the time he told DC where they could stick it...

Bloody hell. This is for real? Shit. I loved what Martin did on that Chopper story for me, even if some readers at the time were a little non-plussed. Last time I saw Martin was at San Diego five or seven years ago, when he and the Biz were involved with Verotika.

My sincere condolences go to all his friends and family.

davidbishop

Yep, that sounds like Marty. He believed if you told someone the complete truth, how could they possibly hold it against.
Jaws would drop as Martin enlightened editors, producers etc. to his particular take on their suggestions or plans....usually 'naaaaah! that sucks man!'
Emond, heavy metal's finest diplomat!
And when he started work for Glenn Danzig, I was treated to heavy metal riffage 24/7. Being a little punk rocker, we constantly squabbled over his love of Guns n fuckin Roses and Iron Maiden...
The horror, the horror..
 

I'm with Eyebrows in being reluctant to make emotional post to threads like this without knowing the person, but that is a real shame. I absolutely loved White Trash and Accident Man and the few other examples of his work I got to read, and especially the sense of energy and personality that came through them. Condolences to all that knew him.

Likewise, I didn't know him but liked his work and wish condolences to his friends and family. From what's been posted on this thread by those who did know him, it's clear he was greatly loved and will be missed very much.

This is terrible, Martin was one of those artists you kept expecting to see return in a blaze of enrgy with something you had never seen before. That is what we got in Toxic.

So Sorry to hear this news.

Bolt-01

I never knew him but always admired his artwork especially in Toxic. He was a blast of fresh air in a time of Bisley clones. I often re-read Toxic and thought he'd be great in 'Tooth or the Meg'.
My thoughts and condolences are with his friends and family.

The Silver Bullets website now has the story on Martin's sad death:

Link: link

Loved Martins Accident Man artwork, his chopper story for the Meg was what salvaged Chopper from the stuff that had been printed before and have just recently re-read White Trash.
Weird & Warped artwork that was unmistakable.

La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.

I just can't believe it. My deepest condolences to Martins family,friends and Loved ones.

The first time I had the pleasure of meeting Martin was ten years ago at one of the first comic conventions ever held in NZ. The meeting somehow has been burnt into my brain ever since. Rufus Dayglo ? I assume Dayglo was doing Pistake then? - and Martin were sitting behind their table just hanging out (Rufus Dayglo was eating plain Vogels bread, and he made some joke about it). I started sheepishly asking them about there work and from there Martin just took over and started letting me know all about his work. On his own volition he took me through the process he used to paint his pages for White Trash, showed me a copy of a cover he'd just done for a Lobo and Deadman book for DC, and at one point started showing me his tattoos (the one that really stuck out to me was one of Joe Pineapples (I think it was JP) that he had placed on his hip, he then facetiously flashed his pubic hair thinking it was pretty damn funny (it was)), an innumerable other things. Eventually a hoard approached their table so I started to quietly slip off to let the peoples do their thing and he was like "hey man where you going...". He obviously thought he could've answered MORE of my questions. Anyway I said I'd just leave him be (as he'd obviously gone above and beyond expectations).

Just being this overzealous kid and having someone as talented as Martin take that kind of time with me cannot be appreciated enough, he was cool beyond cool.

Martin Edmond?s profile page shows the work he did for Tharg and its now you wish he?d done more. Look out for the reprint of Accident Man, which contains the Accident Man story from the first 6 issues of Toxic:
Apocalypse Presents "Accident Man" June 1991, &  also ?White Trash?



You can see more of Martin?s work on the Illicit Clothing website. The opening ?cowgirl? image is great.





La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.