Well, Murphy has been working against me lately.
First, Tothfans went down sometime last night. Then as I was building up a new Server today, I realized that I had missed announcing our Third Anniversary on October 18th! What a day for the server to crash…
So Happy Third Anniversary everyone! And once again thanks to Alex and all of Tothfans’ contributors and visitors! Here is to another three years and beyond!
Batman is back! We gave you a brief one-month look at this last spring and at some Toth fans' requests we've brought it back -- Alex Toth's one and only Batman comic book story with his annotations, "Death Flies the Haunted Sky". There are insights from Alex about how the story originated, about comics layout and "insider's" knowledge from the pros about continuity, and some preferences on color and panel design -- even dialogue balloons. So feast your eyes, friends, on a master at work. 'Wizard' magazine used the panel sequence at the top of page four when it listed Toth as one of the Top Ten comics illustrators of all time!
Looking back through time at comics done 50 years ago Toth is the only person who could really give us an insight into what it was like to draw for the comics, panel after panel, page after page, day after day.
These two Lev Gleason romance stories are from Boy Loves Girl #47: "Postponed Honeymoon" (6/1954) and "Boy Loves Girl #46: "No Love for Me" (5/1954). They bring out the usual boos and hisses about green suits and inattentive coloring as well as a fond remembering of an era that Toth helped to define. The love comes through in every panel, and you can hear it in his writing as well: "Mother nature's kiss of grace does linger on." Mucho Gracias to Mr. Toth for sharing his thoughts with us.
No matter who created her, no one's ever put such a sexy mark on her as Toth, and in the Seventies his deliniation of The Black Canary for Adventure Comics upstaged the cover girl, Supergirl. How could one comics title have so much to stir up pubescing adolescent boys?
TV's "Kung Fu" may have had the moves but Toth's Black Canary had the form, and that little 'Bolero' outfit has never looked the same. "Move over, man, I want to learn Judo! Hey, baby, what you say? Best two out of three falls?" Don't offer this one candy, brother, even if we do have parts one and two annotated by The Man Himself...
