BATMAN WALLPAPERS - Inspired by the Art of Alex Toth

For this week's "Wacky Wallpaper Wednesday" I'm proud to say that the artwork for these 2 Batman Wallpaper Backgrounds were supplied by a friend to the Bat-Blog named Tom DeRosier. He said that when drawing them he was being inspired by the Comic Book Art of Alex Toth. Looking at them I can totally see the influence, especially the "painted brushstroke" black line. Toth worked in comics, on & off, for many decades. He was also a Lead Designer for Hanna-Barbera Animation. He worked on the 1970's SUPER FRIENDS Cartoon & this is where our friend took inspiration. Mr. Toth died in 2006 at the age of 78. I met him once, at a Comic Book Convention in the late 70's. He was extremely nice & a lot of fun to talk to. Plus, he was a GREAT Artist.

BATMAN - SUPER FRIENDS Model Sheets by Alex Toth

OK, this is pretty cool! In response to a few SUPER FRIENDS Model Sheets we posted recently another Bat-Blog Fan named Nick sent in some more that he has. These feature the artwork for Action Poses or "what Batman looks like in action", the dashboard of the Batmobile, & another mock-up of the Batmobile car (full-length). Of course the artwork is done by none other than the master, Alex Toth! Thanks goes out to Nick for submitting this wonderful pieces of bat-history.

THE SUPER FRIENDS Batman CARTOON ANIMATION MODEL SHEETS By Alex Toth!

I opened my email box recently & nearly cried! What made me almost cry? These extremely beautiful Batman animation drawings by Alex Toth, that's what! Our friend Scott sent these pictures of some real-life ANIMATION MODEL SHEETS that were created for Hanna Barbera Productions, Inc © 1973. They were made for THE SUPER FRIENDS TV Cartoon. "Model Sheets" are basically a blueprint for all the different Animation Artists to use as a guide. They help keep the artwork consistent & perfect ( In size, scale and color ). These show the Basic Batman Figure ( in costume ), The Batmobile Car, & The Batplane... or is it Bat-Plane? ha! Now, readers, you might check the Bat-Blog Archives ( located on the left-side of this page, near the middle ) because I have posted more of them in the past & they're always fun to see. Plus, I wanna thank Scott for sending these, they're beautiful! These really bring back a ton of wonderful memories of my childhood. I totally loved this TV show. OK, I'm crying again, all over my keyboard. I need a minute.

SUPER FRIENDS - BATMAN MODEL SHEETS Animation Artwork by Alex Toth

Here are some amazing examples of the fantastic artwork of Alex Toth! Most of his fans know him for his Golden Age Comic Book Art but he was also a leading Graphic Designer in the World of Animation. In fact, he created most of the visual look for the Super Friends Cartoon TV Show back in the early 1970's & here are 3 totally awesome "Model Sheets" to prove it! A Model Sheet is something used by an Animator to keep an exact idea of what certain things are suppose to look like. It helps to make artwork consistent & sets the correct scales, sizes, & colors too. In these examples you see the ones for Batman himself, his Batmobile Car, & the famous Bat-Jet! I totally love this old animated cartoon & when I was a very little kid I really loved it too. I wanna thank our friend Scott for sending these great pictures & reminding me of my childhood. Also, I'm a HUGE Alex Toth Fan so seeing anything by him is a great treat.

ALEX TOTH 1970's Challenge of The Superfriends CARTOON MODEL SHEETS

Shown up above, for your viewing pleasure, are these 2 RARE Cartoon Model Sheets from the "Challenge of The Superfriends" TV Cartoon Show. They were done in ©1973 by Alex Toth, lead designer for the series. These were made to give animators a guide to go by & to keep the character/vehicles consistent. Besides this job Alex Toth had been a pionner in the Golden Age era of comics. As a very young teen I met Alex Toth at a comic book convention here in my hometown of Oklahoma City. He was extremely nice to me. It was kind of funny. He seemed really tired & sort of annoyed by the whole "convention thing". I don't think he felt very well. Anyway, I walked up to him & started to gush about his Golden Age comic book work & he was really impressed so he started to liven-up a bit. We talked for a really long time. He told me that absolutely NOBODY asked him about this old work & he was grateful for that. I think being a part of early comic book history was what he felt most proud about even though he had a very long period of success. It was a really nice moment. But, in hindsight I think I screwed up though because I never asked for an autograph or sketch, ha ha! He died a few years back & comics will never be the same. A lot of people are really HUGE FANS of his work today because he was so extremely talented but I just remember a really nice guy.

CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFRIENDS Model Sheets

Here's the original model sheets for CATWOMAN & RIDDLER done by Alex Toth for the CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFRIENDS Cartoon ©1978 Hanna Barbera. As a little kid going to comic book conventions I met Alex Toth & he was really nice to me. I regret that I was too young to think about getting a sketch or autograph but we had a nice long talk. He was really impressed with how I was totally familuar with alot of his "Golden Age" artwork & comics. He asked what comics I was reading at the time & he said he read some of those too, it was cool. This was around the same time these drawings were done.

SUPER FRIENDS Animated Cartoon Model Sheet for Batman

In 1973 a famous comic book artist named Alex Toth was hired to create "the look" of the characters for the SUPER FRIENDS Animated Cartoon TV Series. Here's the MODEL SHEET for Batman....a great piece of ART!

Be sure to check the BAT-BLOG ARCHIVES for more original comic art related to Batman!