Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- When I was a kid in 1957, I was all hopped up on the start of a new series coming to TV. Every kid in America was. Zorro was promoted endlessly on the Disneyland Show and on Mickey Mouse Club. When it finally came time for the show to premiere, I was in trouble. I had caught the Asiatic Flu, troublesome in those days, and was violently sick. I wasn’t allowed to leave my bed. I was so upset at the idea of missing Zorro, that I was probably getting myself sicker. My father carried me out of my bed into the living room to watch the premiere, and I was ecstatic. The show was great (but probably not as great as the one that had built n my mind), and all was right with the world.

Naturally, I owned the comic book when that came out. Now here comes that very same comic via email. Bill Peckmann sent me scans and added a lot of additional material as well. I hope you enjoy it. Here’s Bill:

What happens when you take a cartoonist who excels in designing and staging in black ink and give him the assignment of illustrating a western capped crusader dressed in black, you get the classic comic book series “Walt Disney Presents Zorro”, that’s what!

We lucky fans of Alex Toth always felt it was a match made in heaven, but Alex had a slightly different take on it, which you will read further into the post.

Here is a small scrapbook of “Zorro” art that spans over 40 years.

We start with the first Zorro (origin) story from Dell printed in 1957. The first half of the story is the original color comic book, the second half of the story is a black and white reprint version taken from Eclipse Books’ “The Complete Collection of Zorro” printed in 1988. Editor Dean Mullaney was able to get Alex to add new gray toning to the pages and do two new beautiful covers!

Magazine cover

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20
The two new covers done in 1988, Alex at the top of his game.

21
This illustration is from Manuel Auad’s “Alex Toth” book.

22
This is taken from Manuel Auad’s “Alex Toth” book.

23
Alex’s thoughts on “Zorro” taken from Dean Mullaney’s Eclipse book.

24

25
Marvel Comics brought Zorro out of retirement in 1991
and Alex did three covers for that venture.

26

27

28
There was always need for a Zorro sketch here and there
and Alex always obliged!

29

- In celebration of the new book about Alex Toth, Genius Isolated by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell, we’re posting some Toth work for Dell comics in the 60s.

Bill Peckman has an enormous collection of comics by Toth, and with the help of Dean Mullaney, we’d like to show how beautiful Alex Toth’s originals look in comparison with the poor quality printing of the comics. You can see how degraded the lines become in the final magazines when placing them alongside the original art.

Here are three comparisons to make from the comic, The Land Unknown.

This is the published cover.

1a
Look at the soft lines printed on the poor quality newsprint.

1b
This is the original from Alex Toth.

2a

2b

3a

3b

Here are a sampling of other magazines done by Alex Toth.

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Alex Toth also did a lot of TV titles such as: 77 Sunset Strip, Sugerfoot, The Real McCoys’, Danny Thomas, The Lennon Sisters… to name a few.

Probably his best remembered title is Zorro from the Disney TV series. This was reprinted not too long ago – the first collaboration between Alex Toth and Dean Mullaney.