Alex Toth · Heads Up!

Heads Up: GENIUS, ILLUSTRATED: THE LIFE AND ART OF ALEX TOTH

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Coming in April 2012 from IDW:

Here’s the publisher’s description:

Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell continue their comprehensive review of the life and art of Alex Toth in Genius, Illustrated. Covering the years from the 1960s to Toth’s poignant death in 2006, this oversized 9.5″ x 13″ book features artwork and complete stories from Toth’s latter-day work at Warren, DC Comics, Red Circle, Marvel, and his own creator-owned properties, plus samples of his animation work for Hanna-Barbera, Ruby-Spears, and others, as well as sketchbook pages, doodles, advertising art, and other rarities provided through the cooperation of Toth’s family and his legion of fans. Two of Toth’s best stories are reproduced complete from the original artwork: “Burma Skies” and “White Devil… Yellow Devil.” A full-length text biography will chart the path from Toth’s increasingly-reclusive lifestyle to his touching re-connection to the world in his final years. Fans of comics, cartoons, and all-around great artwork revere Alex Toth. See why Genius, Illustrated —along with its companion volume, 2011’s Genius, Isolated —are being praised as the definitive examination of the life and art of The Master, Alex Toth. Volume 2 of a definitive three-volume series.

And here’s my recommendation: buy it!

Heads Up! · Look Here · Richard Thompson · Sergio Aragones

Heads Up: Team Cul de Sac welcomes Sergio Aragones!

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Team Cul de Sac is an online fundraising site that has been working since January 2011 to encourage cartoonists to donate original art made especially for a book about Parkinson’s awareness. The book is being produced in honour of the award-winning cartoonist-creator of the syndicated comic strip Cul de Sac, Richard Thompson, who on 16 July 2009 announced to the online community that he himself was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Part of the profits from the sale of the book will go to benefit the Michael J Fox Foundation (MJFF), and the original art will be auctioned as part of the fundraiser with all of auction money going to MJFF.

Many well-known cartoonists such as Mell Lazarus, Stephan Pastis, R. Sikoryak, Gary Trudeau, and Bill Watterson, have already donated wonderful collages, drawings, and paintings to the cause, but on Tuesday the amazing Sergio Aragonés stepped up to show everyone how it’s done:

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In addition to bidding on the various pieces of original artwork when they are put up for auction in the fourth quarter of this year and/or buying the book when it launches in May/June 2012, you can also support Team Cul de Sac and Parkinson’s research either through the purchase of a print or fanzine via the Team Cul de Sac blog or through the purchase of a custom Cul de Sac gift via Zazzle!

Hilda Terry · Look Here · Look There

Look There (and Here): Selections from EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE

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Back in 2008, Mike Lynch posted a bunch of cartoons that he had scanned from Ever Since Adam and Eve, edited by Alfred Andriola and Mel Casson, who dedicated the book to the National Cartoonists Society. Here are the links:

Featured artists include Alfred Andriola, Stan and Jan Berenstain, Walter Berndt, Milton Caniff, Irwin Caplan, Al Capp, George Clark, Chon Day, Gregory D’Alessio, Harry Devlin, Rube Goldberg, Harry Hanan, Al Hirschfeld, Hank Ketcham, Frank King, George Lichty, Marty Links, Kate Osann, Russell Patterson, Alex Raymond, Carl Rose, Charles Schulz, Ronald Searle, Barbara Schermund, Noel Sickles, Otto Soglow, Henry Syverson, J. W. Taylor, Hilda Terry, and Mort Walker.

Quite a few heavy hitters in there, I think you’ll agree. But of all the cartoons and drawings from Ever Since Adam and Eve that Mike posted, here’s the one that interests me most:

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The artist is Gregory d’Alessio, and the model is his wife, cartoonist Hilda Terry, whose work has been featured several times here at RCN:

In addition to being a syndicated cartoonist, a painter, and an influential guitar music enthusiast, Gregory d’Alessio was vice-president of the Art Students League in New York from 1937 to 1944 and was an instructor in drawing at the League from 1960 until his death in 1993 at the age of 88. D’Alessio’s wife of 55 years, Hilda Terry, also became a regular instructor at the League in the 1980s (after her “retirement”), teaching a class in drawing twice a week, and continued in that capacity, near as I can tell, pretty much right up until her death in 2006 at age 92.

BONUS IMAGE:

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Comics · Harvey Kurtzman · Here, Read

Look Here, Read: LUCKY FIGHTS IT THROUGH by Harvey Kurtzman

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It’s a little known bit of historical comics trivia that Harvey Kurtzman’s first work for EC appeared in a commercial giveaway comic intended to educate readers on the symptoms and treatment of syphilis. Set in the old West, Lucky Fights It Through reveals a talented young artist — Kurtzman was about 25 at the time — who was already in full command of the bold, energetic, appealing style that would carry him through the rest of his career in comics — although the influence of Milton Caniff, so obvious here, would quickly fade — and it is entirely due to Kurtzman’s artistry and irreverence that, unlike most “educational comics,” Lucky has remained a compelling read for anyone who appreciates great performances in comics no matter what the venue or occasion; so compelling, in fact, that the story was not only reprinted, in its entirety, in colour in the EC fanzine Squa Tront #7 in 1977, but also appeared in glorious black and white in the 112-page “trade paperback” comics reprint collection Teen-Aged Dope Slaves and Reform School Girls in 1989, some forty years after its original publication in 1949. If you’re curious to read the comic for yourself, the blog Hairy Green Eyeball II has had the colour reprint available for your viewing/reading pleasure since 25 August 2008, and as of today, RCN has the black-and-white reprint, posted below. Enjoy!

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Illustration Art · Look Here · Original art vs. printed page · Richard Corben

Look Here: NEW TALES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS, page 23, by Richard Corben

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I invented a technique —my system of color overlays —which apparently nobody can understand, but it’s really very simple. The luminescent quality of my color overlays is derived from the way I combine the colors. I shoot the photomechanical separations myself, to a slightly higher contrast than a normal photo engraver would do. This makes the colors appear brighter. I’m excited when I do finally see the colors. I can see if my ideas work well or not so well.”
—Richard Corben in conversation with Brad Balfour,
Heavy Metal #53 (August 1981)

Comics · Here, Read · Look Here · Walt Kelly

Look Here, Read: Four consecutive POGO Sundays (April 16th to May 7th, 1950) by Walt Kelly

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Pogo – Vol. 1 of the Complete Syndicated Comic Strips by Walt Kelly is now in stock in the Fantagraphcs warehouse. Below are the four POGO Sundays included in the PDF preview available via a link on this page in the Fantagraphics catalogue, which makes this post a preview of the preview of the book:

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