Today in Comics History, June 25: Happy birthday, Alex Toth!

Born on this day in 1928: artist and animator Alex Toth! You'll remember him from designing and working on a lot of the Hanna-Barbera 1960s cartoons (Super Friends, Fantastic Four, Sealab 2020, The Herculoids, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, Dino Boy in the Lost Valley, among many others! His comics c.v. includes the Golden Age Green Lantern, All Star Comics, All-Star Western (Hey, why does one have a hyphen and the other doesn't? Truly one of the great mysteries of the comics age!), The Witching Hour, Detective Comics and more!


from Limited Collectors' Edition #C-41 [Super Friends] (DC, December 1975), by Alex Toth



I heartily recommend LCE #C-41 as a great Alex Toth collectible: not only does it feature definitive versions of his Super Friends (albeit with Superman faces redrawn by Curt Swan) but several new comics pages by Toth!



front and back covers of Limited Collectors' Edition #C-46; front and back cover pencils and inks by Alex Toth, front cover Superman face pencils by Curt Swan, front cover Superman inks by George Klein, colors by Sol Harrison
...and C-41 also contains an in-depth look inside the process of animation creation for television drawn in a step-by-step series by Toth. This segment alone is worth the price of admission! Here's a couple pages from it.



All that work with television and comics is why I call him the man with the double career!


from Limited Collectors' Edition #C-23 [The House of Mystery] (DC, Winter 1973)
Didja know he and and Robert Kanigher co-created the greatest DC Comics character...Rex the Wonder Dog?


from Men of Mystery (1999 series) #25 (AC, October 2000)
(And here's a reminder from Marvel that Toth didn't only work for DC and Charlton, too!)


from Marvel Age #101 (Marvel, June 1991), pencils and inks by Alex Toth
Happy birthday, Alex Toth!


Limited Collectors' Edition #C-41