Favourite Cartoons - Space Angel the animated comic book - Alex Toth and Glen Michael?

One of my earliest introductions to American comic book art was in the syndicated cartoon series Space Angel that appeared on TV screens in Scotland (I think before the rest of the UK) around 1966\67. The link to comic book art was that the series was designed by the great Alex Toth, in addition to this the style of animation was mostly static (like a comic book) and featured the "syncho-vox" lip technique which superimposed human lips onto the face of the illustrated character. Toth also produced a 6 page promotional Space Angel comic strip that appeared in the U.S. childrens comic magazine Jack and Jill.

The series follows the adventures of 3 astronauts who work for the Earth Bureau of Investigation's Interplanetary Space Force on board their spacecraft the Starduster. The characters, Scott McCloud (Space Angel) the Captain is accompanied by Communications expert Crystal Mace and Gunner/Engineer Taurus as they patrol space to keep it safe. Below and above some early Toth sketches for Space Angel taken from the excellent book " The Cartoon Art of Alex Toth .

So who is Glen Michael? Well to Scottish kids of a certain age Glen was a legendary TV presenter who introduced the highly popular cartoon TV show "Cartoon Cavalcade" from 1966 until 1992. At a time when cartoons were limited on TV, Glen managed to obtain some wonderful features including the early 1960s Marvel charaters, the Justice League of America, Batfink, Harvey cartoons, Birdman, Fearless Fly, Milton the Monster, Galaxy trio and of course Space Angel. When I think of many of these cartoons I always feel Glen should get some credit for introducing them to me.

Above, an early promotional photo of Glen Michael and Rusty and Rudi. Sadly Glen passed away in 2025 at the age of 99.I fear Rusty and Rudi are also no longer with us.

The Groovy 1970's Christmas Countdown: Hot Wheels #6 -Neal Adams & Alex Toth

In 1970 DC Comics released what seemed to be a pretty strange comic book series based on the highly successful kids toys "Hot Wheels". In the comic the action revolved around the main character Jack Wheeler and his friends as they race and save the day in Hot Wheel cars. Only 6 issues where ever publish but everyone is an artistic triumph with ourtanding art by Alex Toth (# 1-5) and Neal Adams who drew the above final Christmas themed issue.

Although not pat of this comic series below is a stunning advert for Hot Wheels cars by the legendary Alex Toth.

Favourite Comics: Thrilling Adventure Stories #2

During the 1970’s comic book newcomers Atlas/Seaboard stormed on to the spinner racks with no less than 23 colour comic titles and 5 black and white "adult-orientated" mags. Despite the many problems the company faced they did produce some decent books with arguably their best title being the black and white anthology magazine “Thrilling Adventure Stories” (TAS), in particular issue 2 of that title. While the first issue of TAS was a good attempt the title exploded with its second and sadly final issue with some wonderful strips by the top writers and artists of the day all wrapped up in the above wonderful Neal Adams cover. Below are a few pages from what I consider to be one of the best black and white magazines of the 1970’s and beyond.

Above: The splash page from perhaps the most famous of all the stories in this issue by the legendary "Manhunter" team of Archie Goodman and Walt Simonson (which I may shown more of later)

Above: The magazines only returning character from TAS #1 "Kromag" by Gabriel Levy with art by Jack Sparling. Although Sparling wasn't one of the top hot comic artists at this time, this was a pretty decent strip.

Above: 2 pages from the John Albano and Russ Heath tale "Tough Cop" - Heath at this time never failed to produce anything less than jaw dropping art.

Above: 2 pages from "Town Tamer" by Steve Mitchell and the wonderful John Severin. Second page image from Comic Art Collectors ( I deleted my image in error after scanning and I'm too lazy to scan it again lol ).

Above: "A job well done" by Rick Meyer and Alex Toth. This was a pretty grim and gritty tale even for the 1970's expertly drawn by Toth who added some nice touches including not using word ballons.

Above: The cover to the first issue of "Thrilling Adventure Stories" by Ernie Colon.

This issue wasn't quite the end of TAS as in 2021 a third issue (of sorts) of "Thrlling Adventure Stories" was published featuring text stories of Targitt 2021/ Man Hunter and Bog Beast by Jeff Rovin, John Albano and Richard Meyers. Cover image from Amazon.

Gone but not forgotten: "What's love got to do with it ?"- Romance comics - Steranko, Romita, Colan

As we enter February, the “commercially” sanctioned month of love I thought it would be as good a time as any to visit possibly the most maligned of all comic book genres – the romance comic. Although these comics were of little (if any) interest to most boys back in the day, the fact was that romance comics were huge with thousands of titles published between 1947 and 1977, despite this and seeing these comics in the spinner racks it never crossed my mind to even peek inside a romance comic let alone buy one. Well, that was up until around 2010 when I heard that these titles included art by many of comic’s greatest artists including John Romita Senior, John and Sal Buscema, Jim Steranko and Alex Toth. Arguably the most sought after of these titles from the 1970s period is the above issue of “Our Love Story” (#5 - June 1970 - cover by John Romita) which featured Jim Steranko’s only romance strip and art by John Buscema, Gene Colan and John Romita.

Above the excellent splash page to the first story in this issue by Stan Lee - "But he's not the boy for me!" by John Buscema and Frank Giacoia.

The second Stan Lee story in this issue is "But he's the boy I love!" with art by Gene Colan and John Romita.

Rounding of this issue is the excellently illustrated strip “My Heart broke in Hollywood!" by Jim Steranko.

Although I only have a handful of romance comics in my collection it seems that the letters pages did not wax lyrical over the content of the actual strips and the heroes latest battles, instead they focused on the more real life issues of the trials and tribulations of dating and young love.

My only other issue of a Marvel romance comic is the above #4 of "Our Love Story" (cover by John Romita from April 1970) with some great art by Gene Colan,Sal Buscema,Frank Giociao and Don Heck.

My third and only other romance comic is of DC's popular "Young Love" #73 (below) from April 1969. Although the art in this issue is not as impressive as the two Marvel titles above, it does feature an excellent story illustrated by the great Alex Toth.

Around the late 1970's romance comics seemed to vanish from the spinner racks just like the Western, humour and war comics that thrived at this time. While many romance comics seemed on the face of it to be drab soap opera dramas, I'm sure many (mostly) girls enjoyed them as pure escapism, perhaps that’s why they "disappeared" at a time when comics were becoming darker and had to be taken "seriously". Personally, as I read these comics (especially the Marvel issues) you could see the soap opera romance elements of these wonderfully fun tales being played out in titles like Spider-Man , Daredevil and many others superhero comics.

Page Turners: Alex Toth

Alex Toth is regularly touted as one of most influential and important comic book artists of all time. But I would hazard a guess that in the early 1970’s your average comic book fan was either unaware of his work or considered his style as old fashioned and not as exciting as that of the likes of the great Jack Kirby or the then “new kid on the block”, Neal Adams. The first time I became aware of Toth’s work was in the pages of Action Comics issue 406 (1971) where they reprinted the Atom and Flash tale from “The Brave and the Bold” issue 53(1964). Although I enjoyed that story (by Bob Haney) and really liked Toth’s interpretation of the Atom (see page below) this would be the last Alex Toth art I would see (other than the occasional Golden Age reprint) for some time, and gradually I forgot about his work. Thankfully, I managed to pick up several comics from the mid 1970’ onwards that featured Toth’s art that would make me a life long fan of the artist known as one of the "grumpiest" in the industry. Below are just a few of my favourite Alex Toth pages to enjoy along with above illo of the "Black Hood" (from " Black Hood" issue 2 from 1983).

Action Comics (DC) issue 406 from 1971

Our Fighting Forces (DC) issue 146 - 1973. Toth excelled at War and Western comics creating some of the most visually stunning comics of the genre.

Black Hood issue 2 (Red Circle Comics) 1983:

The Witching Hour (DC) issues 1 - 1969: Toth provided the framing sequences for the early issues of "The Witching Hour" which contained some of his finest artwork. Toth also provided a 7 page story in issue 1 . As a side note, I managed to pick up issue one of "The Witching Hour" about 5 years ago for only £4 (smug!).

Green Lantern (DC) - issue 171 - 1983.

Superman Annual (DC) - issue 9 - 1983

Blackhawk (DC) issue 260 - 1983. - A 7 page back up tale.

Savage Sword of Conan (Marvel) Issue 64 -1981 - One of Alex Toth's stranger pieces of work was providing a series of Conan posters for this issue of SSOC.This llustraton was also used as a variant cover for Marvels 300th issue of "Conan the Barbarian" - Cover from the Grand Comic Database.

Hot Wheels (DC) Issue 1 (1970) - One of my all time favourite comic book finds is this six issue series of "Hot Wheels". Based on the the enormously successful Mattel's toy this series featured art by Alex Toth, Ric Estrada and Neal Adams (on issue 6).

Weird Western Tales (DC) issue 14 - 1972 - This 8 page western tale (Anachronism) was printed in landscape format.

Star Spangled War Sories (DC) issue 164 - 1972 -One of the genuinely all time great War stories.

Super Friends (DC) Limited Collectors EditiONS (C41) -1975. Toth provided the cover , a 6 page framing story and several pages of art on TV Cartoons for this Collectors edition.

Alex Toth spent a large part of his career working as an animation design artist for Hanna-Barbera on various cartoon series including Super-Friends, Space Ghost, The Herculoids, Birdman and the Fantastic Four. The above design page of the Skrull is taken from the excellent book "Toth by Design" by Darrell McNeill.