Heads Up: Toth Times Two in Twenty-Ten

25 November 200911 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

1. Genius, Isolated: The Life & Art Of Alex Toth
By Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell
IDW Publishing
Release Date: Fall 2010

In an interview at Westfield Comics Blog, Bruce Canwell says:

Almost exactly a year from now, we’re presenting Genius, Isolated: The Life & Art Of Alex Toth. Dean Mullaney and I are writing this together — Dean knew Alex, and back in the days of Eclipse Comics, he reprinted Toth’s much-beloved Zorro comics from the late 1950s/early ’60s. Most folks know about Toth from his work for Hanna-Barbera, where he created the look of Space Ghost, The Herculoids, and many other Saturday morning heroes. We’re working with Alex’s estate, as well as his many friends and fans, to create an in-depth biography that will be accompanied by plenty of rare images, plus a section that will reprint several complete Toth stories. Big companies are being very generous in allowing us to reprint Alex’s stories from their backlist, while individual collectors are giving us total access to their many Tothian treasures. Our goal is to make Genius, Isolated a fitting bookend to our 2008 Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles (currently nominated for two Harvey Awards). Since Toth was the biggest Sickles fan ever, we like to think Alex would approve of that goal!

Even if Alex wouldn’t approve, I certainly do!

2. Setting the Standard: Alex Toth at Standard Comics 1952-54
Edited by Greg Sadowski
Fantagraphics Books
Release Date: ~~Fall 2010~~ Spring 2011

“It’s hard to overstate the influence of Alex Toth on the art of comic books,” says Sadowski. “Toth was from that first generation who grew up reading comic books, and he came to the medium armed with enough discipline, talent, and sheer love and respect for the medium to create a technique free of condescension, artifice, or shortcuts. His work at Standard first established him as the ‘comic book artist’s artist.’” Learning his craft at Eastern and DC, Alex Toth arrived at Standard Comics in late 1951 with a fully formed, graphically impeccable technique perfectly suited to the comic book medium – honest, uncompromising, and free of condescension and artifice. Includes a biographical sketch and an essay on Toth’s approach to comic book storytelling, based heavily on his interviews and written correspondence.

Woo-hoo! Just in time for ~~Christmas~~ Easter… ~~next year~~ the year after next…

BONUS LINKS:

Black and White Wednesday: Gerry Boudreau and Alex Toth’s “The Phantom of Pleasure Island”

Opinions by Alex Toth

Connections: Pyle, Wyeth, Frazetta

20 November 200911 August 2016 RC9 Comments

**ABOVE:** Howard Pyle, *An Attack on a Galleon* (c. 1905).

**ABOVE:** N.C. Wyeth, *Westward Ho!* (c. 1920).

**ABOVE:** Frank Frazetta, *The Galleon* (1973).

**ABOVE:** Frank Frazetta, *Sea Serpent* (1972), oil on canvas. Here’s a bonus: another painting by Frazetta inspired by *An Attack on a Galleon* by Howard Pyle.

Frazetta’s obvious borrowing from Pyle has been pointed out many times in the past; however, I’ve never seen anyone add Wyeth’s painting to the mix (although surely someone has, the line of influence being so clear). Now, of the three galleon paintings, it seems obvious to me that Pyle’s original effort is not only the first but also the best of the three. It’s the best composed; it’s the most expressively painted; it’s the most dramatic. No wonder Wyeth and Frazetta (who seems to me to have borrowed as much from Wyeth’s galleon as from Pyle’s) were enthralled by Pyle’s Attack on a Galleon. It’s a masterpiece. And which of the remaining two galleon paintings is the weakest, Wyeth’s picturesque, chocolate-box cliché or Frazetta’s virtuosic but underdeveloped pastiche? You decide…

BONUS IMAGE (added 23 December 2013):

Art Collection · Ebay Win · Fine Art · Look Here

Look Here: Untitled watercolour by DeWitt Hardy

20 November 200911 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

I mentioned a couple of messages ago that my wife and I own a piece of original art by American watercolourist DeWitt Hardy; however, since I doubt many people (especially here in Canada) know the name, I thought that today, for your (and my!) enjoyment, I would post an image of our purchase:

**ABOVE:** DeWitt Hardy, untitled watercolour painting, 28 x 27 centimetres (approx. 11 x 10.6 inches).

Sorry the image is a bit soft, but the painting was too big for our scanner. Also, our digital camera is not the best.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Book/Magazine Covers (Jones) · Illustration Art · Jeffrey "Jeff" Catherine Jones · Look Here

Look Here: Six more early paperback covers by Jeffrey Jones

18 November 200911 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Yes, there are some serious creases and wear marks on some of the covers, but it is difficult to find pristine copies of thirty-nine-year-old-plus paperbacks, especially when one limits one’s search to local bookstores:

**ABOVE:** Andre Norton, *Star Hunter And Voodoo Planet* (New York: Ace, n.d.), with cover by Jeffrey Jones.

**ABOVE:** Andre Norton, *Sorceress of the Witch World* (New York: Ace, 1968/1978), with cover by Jeffrey Jones (mis-credited to John Pound).

**ABOVE:** John Jakes, *The Planet Wizard* (New York: Ace, 1969), with cover by Jeffrey Jones.

**ABOVE:** Lin Carter, *Thongor Fights The Pirates Of Tarakus* (N.p.: Berkley Medallion, 1970), with cover by Jeffrey Jones.

**ABOVE:** Andre Norton, *The Zero Stone* (New York: Ace, n.d.), with cover by Jeffrey Jones.

**ABOVE:** Andre Norton, *Uncharted Stars* (New York: Ace, n.d.), with cover by Jeffrey Jones.

I don’t really like any of the above covers, with the exception, perhaps, of the Uncharted Stars cover, which I feel is a step up from the others in terms of draftsmanship, composition, technique, originality, and wit.

Art Collection · Drawing · Ebay Win · Look Here

“Jessica Resting on Couch” (2009) by Ed Hall

15 November 200911 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Yesterday evening, I won an ebay auction for a lovely original life drawing of a female model, Jessica, by an award-winning American editorial cartoonist named Ed Hall. The drawing, which is 14 inches wide and 11 inches high, is in graphite and ink on a medium weight paper and is signed and dated by the artist in the bottom right. Here is the scan from the drawing’s ebay auction page:

**ABOVE:** Ed Hall, *Jessica Resting on Couch* (2009), life drawing in graphite and ink, 14 x 11 inches.

Now, truth be told, before I decided to bid on the above drawing, I not only had never, to the best of my recollection, seen any editorial cartoons by Ed Hall, I had never even heard of Ed Hall. This has happened to me before. Many times over the years, I have bid on or purchased outright a drawing or a small painting not because I was already a fan of the artist and wanted a representative sample of his or her work but because I am an admirer of fine draftsmanship (with a special emphasis on figure drawing) wherever I find it and a collector of the same on those infrequent days when the opportunity to buy a work that has caught my attention arises at the same time as my extremely modest budget for original art allows for a purchase.

And yesterday, well… yesterday was just one of those days…

I might post a few specific observations about the drawing itself after it arrives and I have had a chance to peruse it in person, but I am happy to report here and now that my winning bid for Jessica Resting on Couch was US$21.97 (approximately CDN$23.05) and I paid US$10.00 for the drawing to be shipped from Florida, U.S.A., to Saskatchewan, Canada, via USPS First Class Mail International, for a grand total of US$31.97.

Who says one has to be wealthy to have nice things!

Fact is, most of the works in our collection of original art were purchased for less than CDN$100 a piece, and we have some terrific pieces — spot illustrations, comics pages, sketches, etc. — by artists such as John Buscema, Dave Cooper, Jordan Crane, DeWitt Hardy, Rudy Nebres (the all-Nebres “Rook” page I bought from a dealer for a very reasonable US$125.00 plus shipping is the exception that gently mocks the rule), Dave Sim (I bought an all-Sim Cerebus “High Society” page for CDN$50.00 directly from the artist in my first or second year of university), George Woodbridge, Chinese watercolourist Youqiang Zhang, and others.

So, if you would like to own a drawing of similar quality to the one I just bought, and you have a few bucks to spend on original art, you might want to bookmark the ebay auction page of seller halltoons2qr3 or keep an eye on the Halltoons Weblog, where the artist promotes his work and gives advance warning of upcoming ebay auctions. See, for instance, Ed’s blog post about his drawing of Jessica, My Sunday Best, or browse through today’s Sunday sketch results, at least one of which, I am told, will be up for auction this coming weekend.

But should you decide to bid, please be forewarned: if the drawing is first rate, and the price is right, you might have a little competition from me!

BONUS LINK:

Editorial Cartoon by Ed Hall, Artizans Syndicate

Holiday Greetings