Alex Toth--A Wizard, A True Star


 


Well, I think I've finally got this working again. It finally got intolerable, when I found out about Alex's passing. This was not just my meanderings--this was something important.

There might be some benighted popcult-haters who might roll their eyes because Alex Toth was partly responsible for Scooby-Doo. They might say that he might be partly redeemed for designing Space Ghost--if only because the Williams Street guys played random pomo hipness games with him.

To them I say faugh.

Comics historians will treat him better, though it's hard to point to a blazing superstar stint on anything that would point to huge auteur status. They'd have to treat him well because they'd endure the undying enmity and scorn of the other professionals if they did anything but. Yep, his picture's next to the term 'artist's artist' in the dictionary.

But more than appreciation, I got to know Alex, spoke to him nearly daily for a while, and learned from him. And now I should speak about it.

I had broken into the business as a writer at Marvel, which was a dream come true--but I wanted more. At that point in the industry, Marvel and DC were the only games in town, but a lot of creators were chafing at the restrictions they imposed. The direct-sales store phenomenon was beginning to happen, and that , many of us knew, would make smaller companies possible: creator-owned properties, greater experimentation, liberation from the cheap-stuff-for-kids model that still dominated the big guys.

I was one of the excited hangers-on as my friends Dean Mullaney and Don McGregor put together the first issue of Sabre (with art by Paul Gulacy) and I could hear the plates shifting. Thus it was that when word got around that distributor Hal Shuster wanted someone to put together a line of direct sale creaqtor owned books, I pushed myself forward. (Dean warned me against doing so, and he turned out to be right, but I was also right to make the attempt.)

Thhe story's too long to tell here, but it didn't happen, or nearly not. The final results of my labors were parts of the first issues of two black & white magazines, ADVENTURE ILLUSTRATED ans FANTASY ILLUSTRATED. What I had gotten together wasn't half bad: covers by Jim Starlin and P. Craig Russell; stuff by Doug Moench And Bill Sienkiewicz, Don McGregor and Tom Sutton, and John David Warner and Tom Sutton again. (There was also a western by yours truly, Alan Weiss and Alfredo Alcala, but that never saw print--has never seen print yet.) The fuller story isn't really relevant here--it was a time in hell, though with a few windows to heaven.

Hal paid me next to nothing to start the thing up--but he did pay my phone bills. And I took advantage of that.

I got to get on the phone for hours on end, calling up people who were still legends to my youthful senasibilities, and try to sweet-talk them into doing work for the books. Jack Kirby, Wally Wood (who had suffered a stroke, and speaking was difficult for him, but who was gracious and listened to me blather on. He died only months after I last talked to him.)--and Alex.

Alex was wonderful. A joy to talk to, and as interested as I was in the potential changes comics could undergo. He followed all my attempts to get other folks on board--and introduced me to Pat Boyette, who was, if anything, more garrulous than Alex.) Alex also gave me words of wisdom I've never forgotten: "Go for the gross, not the net. The reason it's called 'net' is because it's full of holes and things fall through it."

And so, with all this preamble, is My Alex Toth Story:

One of the coups I'd been engineering arose from the fact that Marv Wolfman was leaving Marvel Comics for DC, and he was taking his partner on the acclaimed TOMB OF DRACULA, Gene Colan, with him. And I was finagling a story out of them midway theough their ballistic path. (Trust me, this was a big deal.) There was one problem, though: Tom Palmer, who had done so much finishing Gene's pencil art, was still firmly lodged at Marvel and unavailable.

Now after I had made my obligatory wheedling passage to get Alex to think about doing something--anything--for the books, I filled him in on everything that was going on, including this. And Alex astounded me by saying, "You know, I've been trying to get myself back into the mindset of doing comics again, and I've been thinking that maybe I could ease myself back into it by doing something mechanical. What do you think about my finishing Gene's pencils? I've always admired his work."

This took me back on my heels. Alex's flat, utterly controlled, perfectly placed black and white work was about as far from Colan's free-form expressionistic swirling masses as I thought you could get. Would Gene be insulted by the offer? Would Gene think me devoid of common sense to even suggest such a weird collision of styles? But how could I not make the offer? I couldn't piss Alex off, after all...

"I'll ask Gene," I said, in as smooth a agent-by-the-poolside voice as I could manage. "It should be his decision, after all."

I didn't call Gene up that day. Nor the next. Finally, having come up with a strategy and a modicum of courage, I gave Mr. Colan a call. (It should be said that Gene had given me nary a prickle of 'artistic temperament.' He was and is a gentleman and a pro.)

"So Gene," I said offhandedly, "I happened to be talking with Alex Toth the other day. He told me he really likes your work."

Silence.

Oh shit, now I've done it. How do I explain this to Alex?

Very slowly, Gene began, "When I was a little kid, my parents took me out on a trip to Hollywood."

Hanh?

"We went around to see the houses of the stars. And although he wasn't home, my parent's actually let me walk through Gary Cooper's house."

Um....

"That was the biggest thrill of my life."

"Until today."

And I said, "Gene, you're really going to like what I have to say next..."

--the unhappy ending, of course, was that that astounding melding of two talents never came about. It's a shame: it would have been something to see.

I did finally get to meet Alex in the flesh about five or six years later, on a hotel shuttle bus at a San Diego Comic Com. I introduced myself, and he lit up, warm and friendly, and I told him the whole story of the demise of AI and FI that I'm not going to tell you. And I reiterated his 'net' remark, which got a laugh.

All this was long ago and in another country, and other folks can praise Alex more comprehensively and at greater length.

But not more sincerely.

Posted: Wednesday - June 07, 2006 at 07:52 PM        

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