Martin grew up in Monmouth, Illinois where his father, George Martin, was a Monmouth College biology professor, and he spent three years attending Monmouth College, leaving his junior year to study at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and joining NEA in 1921 as a cartoonist. Martin found work in 1921 in the NEA art department, and that same year he launched his strip, Girls, which had a character named Boots. Girls became Boots and Her Buddies on February 18, 1924, although some newspapers continued to use the first title.