Space Ghost, one of Toth’s most famous designs.

Alex Toth (June 25, 1928–May 27, 2006), pronounced with a long “o,” was an acclaimed professional cartoonist active from the 1940s through the 1980s. Toth’s work began in the American comic book industry, but is best known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera throughout the 1960s and 1970s. His work included Super Friends, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, The Herculoids, and Birdman. Toth’s work has been resurrected in the late-night, adult-themed spinoffs on Cartoon Network: Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. ImageMetadata File history File links Spaceghost. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Spaceghost. ... Space Ghost was one-half of the animated television series Space Ghost and Dino Boy created by Hanna-Barbera Productions; it first aired on September 10, 1966. ... June 25 is the 176th day of the year (177th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 189 days remaining. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... May 27 is the 147th day (148th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 218 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... Cartoonist Jack Elrod at work. ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... Cartoon Network Studios, formerly known as Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ... The title card for the first Super Friends series. ... Jonny Quest (often referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest) was a science fiction American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, and created and designed by comic book artist Doug Wildey, about the adventures of a young boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures. ... Space Ghost was one-half of the animated television series Space Ghost and Dino Boy created by Hanna-Barbera Productions; it first aired on September 10, 1966. ... The Herculoids was a Saturday morning animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. ... Birdman Birdman and the Galaxy Trio was an animated science fiction series created by Alex Toth for Hanna-Barbera. ... Cartoon Network is an American cable television network created by Turner Broadcasting which primarily shows animated programming. ... Space Ghost at his desk Space Ghost: Coast to Coast is a spoof talk show on the cable TV channel, Cartoon Network. ... Sealab 2021 was an American animated television series shown on Cartoon Networks adult-oriented programming block, Adult Swim. ... Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law is a comedic American animated television series created by Williams Street that airs on Cartoon Network during its Adult Swim late night programming block. ...

Biography

Early life and career

Toth’s talent was noticed early on as a teacher from his poster class in junior high took time to urge that he devote himself to art. Enrolling in the High School of Industrial Arts, Toth studied illustration and received his first paid freelance art at the early age of 15. Toth launched his career at the age of 15, illustrating true stories for Heroic magazine through Steve Douglas’ Famous Funnies shop. Although he initially aimed to do newspaper strips (“It was my dream to do what Caniff, Raymond, and Foster had done” [1]), he found the industry “dying” and instead moved into comic books. Steve Douglas is an artist who has worked as a comic book illustator and editor. ... This article is about the comic strip, the sequential art form as published in newspapers and on the Internet. ... Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (February 28, 1907-May 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist most famous for Terry and the Pirates. ... Alex Raymond (October 2, 1909- September 6, 1956) was an American comic strip artist, best known for his work on Flash Gordon. ... Harold Rudolph Foster (August 18, 1892 in Halifax, Nova Scotia - July 25, 1982) created the comic Prince Valiant. ...

After graduating from the High School of Industrial Art in 1947, Toth was hired by Shelly Mayer at National/DC Comics. He worked there for five years, drawing the Golden Age versions of The Flash, Dr. Mid-Nite, Green Lantern and The Atom. For a brief time in 1950, Toth was able to realize his dream of working on newspaper comic strips by ghost illustrating Casey Ruggles with Warren Tufts. DC Comics is one of the largest American companies in comic book and related media publishing. ... Superman, the catalyst of the Golden Age, from Superman #14, January-February 1942. ... The Flash. ... Cover to JSA: All-Stars #3. ... For the DJ, see DJ Green Lantern. ... The Atom is a fictional comicbook superhero published by DC Comics. ... Warren Tufts is a major comic strip artist and writer who was born too late. ...

In 1952 Toth ended his contract with DC Comics and moved to California. It is during that time that he worked on crime, war and romance comics for Standard Comics. Nedor Comics was the comic book line of publisher Ned Pines, who also published pulp magazines under a variety of company names (primarily Standard, Better and Thrilling) that he also used for the comics. ...

In 1954, Toth was drafted into the U.S. Army and stationed in Tokyo, Japan. While in Japan, he wrote and drew his own weekly adventure strip, Jon Fury, for the base paper, Depot Diary. The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ...

Returning to the United States in 1956, Toth settled in the Los Angeles area and worked primary for Dell Comics until 1960. In 1960, Toth became art director for the Space Angel animated science fiction show. This led to his being noticed (and hired) by Hanna-Barbera, where he worked as a storyboard and design artist until 1968 and then again in 1973 when he was assigned to Australia for five months to produce the TV series Super Friends. He continued to work in comic books, illustrating contributions for the Warren magazines Eerie, Creepy and The Rook. Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publications, which got its start in pulp magazines. ... Space Angel was an animated science fiction television series produced in the United States from early 1962 through 1964. ... Cartoon Network Studios, formerly known as Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ... The title card for the first Super Friends series. ... Warren Publishing is a magazine firm founded by James Warren, who published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades. ...

Contributions to the comics medium

Toth’s contributions to the comics medium are not widely known among casual fans. He did much of his comics work outside the current mainstream of superhero comics, concentrating instead on such subjects as hot rod racing, romance, horror, and action-adventure. His stint on Disney’s Zorro is highly regarded and has been reprinted in trade paperback form several times and there are two volumes of The Alex Toth Reader published by Pure Imagination which focuses on his work for Standard and Western publishing, but otherwise the bulk of his shorter stories can be difficult to locate. Nonetheless, he is widely regarded as an “artist’s artist” and is often lumped among such greats as Will Eisner and Jack Kirby as one of the undisputed masters of the sequential storytelling medium. Antonio Banderas as Zorro in The Legend of Zorro. ... A trade paperback can refer to any book that is bound with a heavy paper cover that is generally cheaper than the hardcover but more expensive than the regular paperback version. ... Pure Imagination is a comic book, magazine, and comics-related book publisher run by Greg Theakston since 1975. ... William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. ... Jack Kirby (August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was one of the most influential, recognizable, and prolific artists in American comic books. ...

Journalist Tom Spurgeon wrote that Toth possessed “an almost transcendent understanding of the power of art as a visual story component,” and called him “one of the handful of people who could seriously enter into Greatest Comic Book Artist of All-Time discussions” and “a giant of 20th Century cartoon design.” [2] He was formally inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990. Tom Spurgeon is an American writer and editor. ... The Kirby Awards were a short lived set of awards given for achievement in comic books. ...

Toth was known for his exhaustive study of other artists and his outspoken analysis of comic art past and present. For example, in a 2001 interview he criticized the trend of fully-painted comics, saying “It could be comics if those who know how to paint also knew how to tell a story! Who knew what pacing was, and didn’t just jam a lot of pretty pictures together into a page, pages, and call it a story, continuity! It ain’t!” [3]. In general, Toth lamented what he saw as a lack of awareness on the part of younger artists of their predecessors, as well as a feeling that the innocent fun of comics’ past was being lost in the pursuit of pointless nihilism and “mature content.” [4]

In the past few years he contributed to the magazines Comic Book Artist and Alter Ego writing columns titled “Before I Forget” and “Who Cares? I Do!” respectively. In 2006 Billy Ingram and James Counts of TVparty [5] produced a book titled Dear John: The Alex Toth Doodle Book cataloguing his correspondence with John Hitchcock, published by Octopus Press.

Death

Toth died at his drawing table on May 27, 2006. [6] The following week, Adult Swim devoted bumps to Toth which simply read “Alex Toth 1928-2006.” The words then faded out without showing the [adult swim] logo, a style the network only uses when mourning the passing of one they deem to be an important person. May 27 is the 147th day (148th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 218 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... Adult Swim, sometimes rendered [adult swim] based on its logo, is the name for the adult-oriented television programming network. ... A brief (usually ten to fifteen seconds) transition announcement in broadcasting, placed between a pause in the program and its commercial break (and also the other way around). ...

Awards & recognition

• Wizard Magazine named Alex Toth number 7 in an article listing the “10 Most Influential Comic Book Artists of All Time.”
• Toth, a character in Supreme Commander, was named after Alex Toth.

Wizard: The Comics Magazine is a magazine about comic books, published monthly in the United States. ... Supreme Commander, sometimes shortened to SupCom, is a real-time strategy computer game designed by Chris Taylor and developed by his company, Gas Powered Games. ...

Bibliography (incomplete)

• Heroic Comics #32 (1945), illustrating the stories “Yankee King,” “One of Our Heroes is...Missing!”
• Heroic Comics #35 (1946), illustrating “The Switchboard Heroine,” “Heroic Traffic Cop”
• New Heroic Comics #44 (1947), illustrating “Mercy Flight,” “Nurse Without Fear”
• All Star Comics #37 (1947), illustrating untitled stories about the Atom and Dr. Mid-Nite written by Robert Kanigher
• All-American Comics #92 (1947), illustrating the cover and “The Icicicle Goes South!”
• All Star Comics #38 (1948), illustrating the cover and “History’s Crime Wave” and “Chapter Four” written by Gardner Fox
• Green Lantern #30 (1948), written by Robert Kanigher
• Comic Cavalcade #24 (1948), illustrating “Forecast: Danger!” (a Green Lantern story)
• All Star Comics #40 (1948), co-illustrating a portion of “The Plight of America” written by John Broome
• All-American Comics #100 (1948), illustrating “Johnny Thunder” written by Robert Kanigher
• Green Lantern #34 (1948), illustrating “Streak Meets the Princess”
• All-American Comics #102 (1948), illustrating “The Bridge of Peril!” (a Johnny Thunder story) written by Robert Kanigher
• Dale Evans Comics #2 (1948)
• Green Lantern #36 (1949)
• Green Lantern #37 (1949)
• Green Lantern #38 (1949)
• New Heroic Comics #55 (1949), illustrating “Her Baby’s Life at Stake,” “Scout Training Saves a Life,” “Runaway Truck”
• All-American Western #114 (1950), illustrating “The End of Johnny Thunder!”
• Danger Trail #1 (1950)
• All-American Western #116 (1950), illustrating “Buffalo Riders of the Mesa!”
• All-American Western #117 (1951), illustrating “Johnny Thunder vs. Black Lightnin’!”
• Personal Love #11 (1951)
• Strange Adventures #12 (1951)
• Strange Adventures #13 (1951)
• Sensation Comics #107 (1952), illustrating “Johnny Peril”
• Strange Adventures #18 (1952), illustrating “Girl in the Golden Flower!” written by Robert Starr
• Mystery in Space #7 (1952), illustrating “The World Where Dreams Come True!” written by Mann Rubin
• Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #3 (1952), illustrating “Rex—Circus Detective” written by Robert Kanigher
• Sensation Comics #109 (1952)
• My Real Love #5 (1952)

Gardner Francis Fox (May 20, 1911, Brooklyn, New York – December 24, 1986) was an American writer best known for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. ... John Broome (1738 - 1810) was a New York political figure. ...

External links

• Official Alex Toth website
• Alex Toth at the Internet Movie Database
• Online eulogy from Tom Spurgeon’s The Comics Reporter featuring numerous quotations, images, and links
• incomplete index of comic-book work at the Grand Comic-Book Database
• “Comic artist Alex Toth dies at 77”, BBC News, 5 June 2006
• Obituary in The Guardian, June 23, 2006