Friday, December 14, 2018

Dan Gurney and the AAR Cuda for hot wheels illustrated by comic book legend Alex Toth, who at only 20 yrs old, was the artist at DC drawing the Golden Age versions of the Flash, Doctor Mid-Nite, and the Atom


Toth illustrated the comic book tie-in to the Hot Wheels animated series based on the toy line.


and if you want to look at this entire comic book, it's online, and following it, is the same book, with all the notes from the artist. http://pangolinbasement.blogspot.com/2012/10/toth-hot-wheels-5-case-of-curious.html and that website pangolinbasement.blogspot.com which is the complete collection of all the comic books he ever worked on.


Alexander "Alex" Toth was an American cartoonist active from the 1940s through the 1980s, listed as #7 of “10 Most Influential Comic Book Artists of All Time” by Wizard Magazine, and mentioned by animationresources.org  as the elite 3rd of all time comic book artists, after  Eisner and Kirby. That's the height of fame in comic book illustration right there.

Toth's work began when he sold his first freelance art at the age of 15, subsequently illustrating true stories for Heroic magazine through a comic book packager named Steve Douglas. Although he initially aimed to do newspaper strips ("It was my dream to do what Caniff, Raymond, and Foster had done"), he found the industry "dying" and instead moved into comic books.

After graduating from the School of Industrial Art in 1947, Toth was hired at National/DC Comics. Green Lantern #28 (Oct.–Nov. 1947) was one of the first comics he drew for the company. He drew a canine sidekick for Green Lantern named Streak and the dog proved so popular that he became the featured character on several covers of the series in 1948.

 He worked at DC for five years, starting at the age of 20, drawing the Golden Age versions of the Flash, Doctor Mid-Nite, and the Atom and penciling several of the company’s comic book series, such as Action Comics, Detective Comics, The House of Secrets, Green Lantern, All-American Western, and numerous others.

Throughout the 50s, Toth bounced around a little, both physically and professionally. He left New York for California, DC for Standard, but he is also known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera throughout the 1960s and 1970s on Johnny Quest, Space Ghost, and the Herculoids

He was drafted by the Army in 1954 (and it's amazing to consider that he'd been a working professional for several years and was still young enough to be drafted) and served in Tokyo, Japan. While in Japan, he wrote and drew his own weekly adventure strip, Jon Fury, for the base paper, Depot Diary.

However, Toth is best known for his animation work for Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. Beginning in 1965, he was responsible for inventing and designing many of their cartoon characters in addition to storyboarding their television episodes. Through sketches and model sheets, Toth conceived and shaped the look and feel of some of Hanna-Barbera’s most popular characters, including Space Ghost, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, the Super Friends, Thundarr the Barbarian, Captain Caveman, and many others. Working with Hanna-Barbera over the next two decades, Toth gave life to the heroes of a generation of television viewers.

It would be an injustice however to not mention the other half of the Hanna-Barbera magic touch, they discovered two great voice actors, Daws Butler and Don Messick.

Butler provided the voices for many of the most popular characters of Hanna-Barbera’s cartoons through the years, including Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Hokey Wolf, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, Elroy Jetson, Wally Gator, Peter Potamus, and numerous others, he also filled in for Mel Blanc as Barney Rubble for five episodes of The Flintstones while Blanc recovered from an auto accident.

Messick’s most famous voice was that of Scooby-Doo, from the character’s debut in 1969 until he retired from the role in 1994. He also provided the voices for Boo Boo Bear, Ranger Smith, Bamm-Bamm Rubble, Astro from The Jetsons, Dr. Benton Quest, Ricochet Rabbit, Atom Ant, Muttley, and many more.

That's my childhood cartoon tv watching saturday mornings, right there. Call it 1975-77

Recognized for his contributions to the comics industry, Toth was awarded the Ink Pot Award in 1981, and inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990.

Though a book of his work (Dear John: The Alex Toth Doodle Book) was nominated for the Eisner Award, Toth wasn't.  http://www.tvparty.com/comics/toth1a.html




https://boingboing.net/2015/05/27/alex-toth-the-cranky-genius.html
https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/alex-toth
https://www.illustrationhistory.org/essays/hanna-barbera-the-architects-of-saturday-morning
http://comicsalliance.com/tribute-alex-toth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Toth

And though that entertains the Comic Con people, like me, there are the Millar's Drag Cartoons and Big Daddy Roth comics fans that will be happy to learn that in 'Toth - One For The Road" put out by Michael Auad Publishing, has a complete collection of all the great cartoons he wrote and drew for Millar's Drag Cartoons, Hot Rod Cartoons and Big Daddy Roth comics.


His character Granny McGo had a patchwork quilt parachute to slow down her slingshot

 http://drawnonadime.blogspot.com/2007/03/
http://pangolinbasement.blogspot.com/2014/09/toth-hot-rod-cartoons-10-craziest-quilt.html#more
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10210532668553228&set=gm.2285354104809730&type=3&permPage=1&ifg=1



I bet a lot of readers are glad I've moved on from old french advertising art!

3 comments:

  1. Naw, methinks most everybody reading your blog likes every single thing you post. Some things more than others, of course, but the standard of the things I don't usually care much about, is still high enough to make me take notice.

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    1. the damn nit pickers are not giving up though "What you failed to see though is a fourth Mustang behind these three red ones. It’s a green 67/68 coupe." is what I just got on the post about 3 identical Mustangs behind the actors in a movie https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/04/why-in-world-did-set-director-in.html

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