ALEX TOTH June 25, 1928 – May 27, 2006
Index of Alex Toth material on this web site
The legendarily cranky comics artist (and animation artist) was respected for his high quality drawing and advanced sense of storytelling. He fought with just about everyone and was known for taking scripts and rewriting them to suit himself, unbidden by the editors who then had to decide whether to use the results or not (usually they didn't: a whole trough of unprinted Toth comics exists somewhere, or maybe nowhere, since such material was probably trashed. Like the generation of comics artists that Toth belonged to and who made the industry what it was, original art was not considered that important and was often disposed of. The main concern of this group of artists was the printed work, not the original.)
Whatever tormented Toth (and his biography is full of gaps, dark depressions, and fights with long-time friends who suddenly never heard from him again) he was a genuine genius comic book artist, combining drawing skills, draftsmanship, storytelling ability and possessing that fourth-dimensional element that makes a good comic book come alive for a reader.
In an industry where many a star artist has been able to cash in on their fame for the best paying page-rate, the most renown among the fans, and the celebrity and connections to bridge their way into even more lucrative multi-media projects, Toth apparently didn't care and refused the accolades that were piling up around his name toward the last years of his life.
Related:
Alex Toth has died - Obit page
Alex Toth Blazing Combat Page 1966
Alex Toth Darby O'Gill Page 1959
Read an essay about Alex Toth's work on "White Devil... Yellow Devil" at Art & Artifice
[Below: First page from the Toth story "Taps" that appeared in the short-lived BOP comics magazine. Toth dedicated the strip to Wally Wood, who had then recently killed himself.]
Black Canary by Alex Toth.
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