Afternoon of Rememberance in photos:





















The Afternoon of Remembrance was, as always, a great event. The family of Myron Waldman came in for the event form New York and Florida. I got to see some incredible Waldman art work. And Stories, I got to hear some stories that I will be passing on to my students and my students will think I know so much and have done so much research and am such a scholar. If they only knew how much I take away from the Afternoon of Remembrance each year.

We had time constraints yesterday. For that reason I was unable to read all of the comments on Alex Toth that I had received from Irwin Hasen and Lance Falk. So I am going to publish their complete comments here.

Irwin Hasen, the creator of Dondi and the regular artist on Green Lantern in the 1940 was an early mentor to Alex Toth. He was also my teacher at the Kubert School in the late 70s. Irwin has been teaching at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Arts for the last 30 years. A young Alex Toth use to hang out at Irwin`s studio in the 40s and would bribe Irwin to critique his art work with gifts of his mother`s cooking. Irwin has carried on a correspondence with Alex over the years. The post cards that Alex sent to Irwin and other friends, tightly lettered both front and back with his philosophy of art and his observations of the human condition, are being collected into a book.

Lance Falk is a character designer, color stylist, property designer, model designer and storyboard artist. He has worked at Hanna & Barbera, on Animaniacs, and a whole lot more. As a designer he is a major fan of the work of Alex toth and has gone out of his way to collect copies of the work that Toth did in animation and in comics.

Irwin Hasen:

I fondly recall, in the early 1940s this gangly kid in knickers and sweater showing up at my apartment studio in Manhattan bearing a pot of his mother`s Hungarian goulash and a stack of his cartoons waiting to be critiqued.

He was working at National Comics, now DC, he was hired by the brilliant editor Sheldon Mayer, Alex told me, because he was a fan of my work. Go figure!

Alex soon became a top comic book artist for a short time in N.Y. and then left for California to do animation among other areas of cartoon work.

I never saw my friend again, but he kept in touch with crowded, front and back post cards. And these [post cards] carried a message of cogent but unsettling appraisals of human nature.

Alex Toth was the ultimate graphic artist, never relinquishing his own dogma of simplicity. His body of work, so varied and with such elegant style, never veering away from his dogma of no clutter, simplicity and above all be honest to thine own self. I so value, to this day, the brief encounter I had with this genius of our milieu who I believe enriched my own efforts in this working world of the cartoonist.

Irwin Hasen
NYC 2006


Lance Falk

Alex Toth: The Artist`s Artist.

I didn`t know him well. We had a handful of phone conversations and I had the pleasure of visiting him a few times at his home in the Hollywood Hills.

Anyone will tell you that Alex was an intense guy. Very passionate about his opinions and he would not suffer fools. He was always polite and friendly to me, though I found him to be a very volatile guy when talking about the old days or any current trends.

Let`s just say, it was a bit different from the time I got to visit Jack Kirby.

I really came to know Alex by going through The Hanna-Barbera model archives and greedily photocopying every scrap of his that I could find. If you`re a designer, you`ll understand why.

It was clear that this was the work of an actual genius. All technically brilliant, his machines were mechanically flawless, his characters had warmth, appeal, and humanity. Alex`s imagination was an endless fount of perfect ideas.

I`m the thousandth person in stating that Alex could say more in a handful of well-chosen lines than any other designer could with a full-blown illustration. . . . making Alex`s numerous skills perfect for animation.

Alex entered animation after already establishing himself as a master draftsman in comic books. The transition isn`t as easy as most people assume because the technical requirements are very different. For most artists, it takes a lifetime to master the technical aspects of their own area of the assembly line. Alex not only adapted to the medium of film, he thrived.

He quickly became a top designer of characters, vehicles, objects and locations. He served as a development and presentation artist. Alex quickly took on the two technically complicated areas of Layout and Storyboarding. He did it all effortlessly and brilliantly.

Comparable to Jack Kirby (in comic books). Toth was not only the best at what he did, he was also the most prolific. He did the work of a small army of artists...while also doing the very best design work anyone had ever seen at the studio.

Alex`s brilliant mind could solve any artistic challenge, and he not only learned his areas of animation, he became conversant in every aspect of the field.

Proof of this is a 10-page article he did for DC comics (in a Superfriends` comic book, appropriately enough) which shows the animation process beginning to end. To this day, there has never been a clearer, more precise explanation of the medium.

The man was a genius in the literal sense. If his muse had struck him differently he would have made one hell of a live action film director, art director, or even mechanical engineer.

Sadly, Alex never believed he was appreciated in his fields of endeavor. When it comes to the general public, I agree. If you ask his fellow artists, this isn`t the case at all. When it comes to Alex Toth, they`ll tell you, the more you know, the more you appreciate his work.

I`ll end this with some words he wrote to me:

The Beauty of the Simple Thing

To Add to the Truth Only Subtracts From It

The Simple Thing is Always Best

. . .They All Say the Same Thing -

It is Devined Sooner or Later, By Anyone in the Arts Who Cares About Truth and Beauty Through Economy, Simplicity and Clarity, to Tell One`s Own Story in One`s Own Way. - As Our Holy Grail - Our Cause, Quest, Purpose,

-and that is the Fun of Any Art, Craft, or Discipline - To Do it Better, Simpler, Until Nothing Can Be Taken Away or Added to Make It Whole and Right.

This Pursuit is For Those Among Us Who Forever Remain Curious, Open, Fresh to All Methodologies, and are Content to Be the Student All Their Lives and Make it Playtime.

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Larry. Feel free to use your editing pen anywhere you see fit to make it read more smoothly. (except Alex`s words, of course. He`d HATE that!)

Next up, the Annie Awards.

Larry Loc (ASIFA Blog Guy)  ¶ 10:23 AM