Martin Emond

New Zealand painter and illustrator

Martin Emond (4 June 1969 in New Zealand – 14 March 2004 in Los Angeles, California, United States), also known under the pseudonyms "Martin Fuckin Emond", "Martyfuck", "Martywood", "Mickey Martin" and "MFE", was a New Zealand cartoon illustrator and painter. Emond's work is said to be reminiscent of rock n' roll tattoos and classic sign art, and characterised by darkly sardonic humour.

Emond found success early in his career illustrating Gordon Rennie's White Trash comic, which led to other high profile cartoon work including designing album covers for Glenn Danzig. He drew the (extremely violent and bloody) strip "Accident Man" for the short lived UK comic Toxic! in 1991. Later he created memorable characters such as the irreverent streetkid Switchblade and girl gang the Rolling Red Knuckles. Many of his illustrations were also produced extensively as screenprints on clothing for the popular New Zealand streetwear label Illicit. The company signed a two year deal with California based clothier Cinder Block, through assistance from intellectual property agency Sharpeco, to create fashions based on a variety of Emond characters. An article on the partnership noted, "Cinder Block were especially taken by a character called Switchblade, a street urchin orphan brought up in a town called Tragedy," noting this character would be the first project of the clothing range. Illicit co founder Steve Hodge remarked, "[Emond] left a huge amount of work behind. It's all catalogued and storylined," with the article going on to state that the range included more than 150 characters. Illicit also planned a collaboration with Oregon based publisher Dark Horse Comics to create a coffee table book on Emond's work. Several of his images were used without authorisation in Pink's music video for "U + Ur Hand."