Alex Toth Gallery

NOTES TO THE GALLERY

• The art in the gallery is meant to be appreciated in all its glorious detail. This means pages that are larger than your screen and files which could take some time to load. Depending on your connection, of course. Be patient, it's worth every byte.
  
• Generally speaking all the art in the gallery is quite scarce.
  
• "Dreamer's Return" (complete story) should be new to most collectors. Previous bibliographies have not listed this, it is a recent discovery. It is not spectacular but unquestionably Toth. The inking is somewhat lacking as it was most likely done by Bernard Sachs. Published in SECRET HEARTS #6.
  
• "I Played With Fire" (complete story) is from BOY LOVES GIRL #43. Very good art from 1953.
  
• "The Man Who Lived Forever" (Splash) is from MYSTERY IN SPACE #1. A very expensive book which means most collectors might not have seen this. The art is very good but not as good as in other sci-fi classics like: "Time Capsule From Tomorrow", "The Brain Masters of Polaris", "Artist of Other Worlds" and "Girl in the Golden Flower". Has not been reprinted and it's unlikely that it ever will.
  
• "I Was King of the Moths" is a Johnny Peril adventure. Alex has done three of them, each one brilliant. The other stories are clever supernatural tales which called for a subtle approach. This story is rather bland but the art is really good and the giant moths make for good imagery. First and only publication in SENSATION #108.
  
• Beginning in 1949 an increasing number of Alex' stories were inked by other artists. His output rose but the quality began to suffer. When he inked himself, though, the result were often spectacular. He began to experiment, the Caniffesque style of the early years was replaced with a more stylish approach. First evidence were the busy "The Case of the Oily Worm" and the equally detailed "Appointment In Paris" in DANGER TRAIL #1. The next story "Toreador From Texas" (page 2) for DANGER TRAIL #2 had a different approach. Done with a Speedball lettering pen it is a very elegant story. The surface has a cool quality, the action scenes are highly stylized (a bull fight like a ballet). A classic. (More Danger Trail pages will follow)
  
• Only part of the copies of 77 Sunset Strip #1066, 1106 and The Real McCoy's #1071 have the one pagers presented here. Most copies we've seen have ads instead. That makes these quite rare.