Max Riffner
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The Passing of Alex Toth
Alex Toth passed away at his drawing table Saturday morning. Non-comic readers would recognize Toth’s work from designing Space Ghost for animation. Comic Book Resources has the details, but Tom Spurgeon has an excellent piece on the man who influenced so many artists. I honestly can’t think of a time where the Shocktraumanauts have all been together without at least a mention of Alex Toth.
The offical Toth website has a gallery of Space Ghost model sheets if you are interested, as well as several other galleries of his work (which I implore you to look at – Space Ghost is neat and all, but Toth’s sequential work is a more important legacy by far).
You can also browse through the Parlor archives.
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May 30, 06:13 AM
I first read about Mr. Toth’s passing this morning on CBR. I can’t believe he died at his drawing board! I’m not sure if that’s cool, sad, or something in between. Whatever the case, it seems appropriate, somehow.
The loss I feel is somehow hard to descibe. He is one of the few aritsts that have worked for so long, yet maintained such a high level of quality in his work. Will Eisner and Al Hirschfeld being the only others that I can think of. And aside from his art, his commentary on comic and animation art was great stuff as well. Sure, he could be a cranky old bastard, but that didn’t make what he had to say any less relevant, whether you agreed with him or not.
I always thought of him as the master of the “less is more” approach to drafting. It’s hard to imagine a Mike Mignola or even a John Romita, Jr. without Alex Toth. He was the old pro still telling the young bucks how to do it right. And not just telling them, but actually showing them as well. I can’t imagine anyone else in the industry taking his mantle, and that’s what makes me the most sad. The next closest thing we’re left with is John Byrne, and John Byrne is no Alex Toth. Not that Byrne isn’t a great artist, it’s just that nobody wants hear what he has to say…