Benjamin Ong Pang Kean asked me some questions about the Alex Toth Doodle Book this weekend after Alex died, so there's some more thoughts on the man and his work over at NEWSARAMA. There's also some thoughts from John Hitchcock and a few more pages from the book. I believe Rich Johnston will have a bit from me too at Lying in the Gutters, I'll update to add that link if so. It's a little strange being in a position to speak about Alex when I didn't know him better than anyone else, usually less so. But I guess that's part of being a publisher of someone's work. I try to deflect attention to John as much as possible, but as he was a good friend to Alex, he's understandably less talkative to journalists at the moment. If a tribute panel on Toth comes together for Comicon International, hopefully he'll be a big part of it as he some great anecdotes to tell.

UPDATE: Here's the latest Lying in the Gutters column, and if you scroll way down you can see more pages from the book.

According to John Hitchcock, Alex Toth passed away this morning at around 7 am. I had braced myself for the eventuality weeks back when he went into the hospital, but I'm a ridiculous optimist. When he pulled through and sent word out that he was on the mend, I got my hopes up that he would live to see the book Hitchcock and Billy Ingram worked so hard on. I was taking pleasure at the thought of sending him a box right away- I even daydreamed about catching a flight down to L.A. and delivering them myself. But at least we can take some solace that the guys sent Alex a galley and he approved of how they did it.

I'm so grateful that Jeff Rose took it upon himself a few years ago to create the Tothfans website. He coded it himself, filled it with all the great content he could find and hosted it on a server in his basement-- and that effort has brought people together from all over the world in appreciation of one the giants of the medium. That site and it's Toth Page of the Day brought the work alive for all new fans in addition to making old ones happy. And when Alex was hospitalized, the avalanche of mail he got was thanks to the community built by Tothfans. I can't imagine anything more rewarding for a creator near the end than to be able to read so many heartfelt thanks and tributes directly. From what I hear, it meant everything.

I'll write more this week after I've had time to collect my thoughts.

Remember that ONGOING FEATURE AT COMIC BOOK RESOURCES ON AGENTS OF ATLAS? Of course you do. Well now they have the one up that has an interview with series artist Leonard Kirk! And I provide notes on the most enigmatic character of AOA, The Human Robot. Who officially has a name now after several decades. We call him M-11. If you can't figure why, just read the column!

Do YOU have an impressive Golden Age collection that includes old Timely/Atlas issues of ASTONISHING (featuring Marvel Boy) or MARVEL BOY (featuring Marvel Boy)? What I'm getting at is that we- and by "we", I mean cover artist Tomm Coker- need 600 dpi scans of any good cover images from the original appearances of Marvel Boy to incorporate into an issue of AGENTS OF ATLAS. If the comics are beat up, that doesn't necessarily rule them out. If you think you or someone you know can help, click the Channel Parker link in the bottom of my sidebar and let me know soon. We'll get Spider-Man to visit your house or something!

Tomm Coker art. Matt Hollingsworth color. In MARVEL WESTERNS: WESTERN # 1. Order it NOW because it ships in July!

That was a clever title, huh? Full of all the wit and double entendre you can expect from me at 6:30 in the morning. Anyway, Jeff Rose of the Tothfans website let me know that the Diamond ordering code for the Alex Toth Doodle Book is available, and it is "JUN063296" "DEAR JOHN ALEX TOTH DOODLEBOOK TP". Thanks, Jeff!

We also have a couple of very encouraging reviews for MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS--Here's the one at Comics Worth Reading, and here's the Silver Bullet Comicbooks review. Heck, with pushes like this, we may break into the Direct Market yet.

Today is Part Two of the ONGOING AGENTS OF ATLAS FEATURE AT COMIC BOOK RESOURCES. More useful information, and some character notes on the real power of the team, VENUS! If you have a moment, represent in the message board thread. That is, when you're not telling everyone about the Toth Book.

Properly speaking that's DEAR JOHN- THE ALEX TOTH DOODLE BOOK, but I know people looking through search engines for this book they heard of will naturally enter Alex's name first. I've finally had a chance to make a website to promote the book, and there are some samples of what you'll see inside.

This project resulted from 25 years of correspondence between Toth and retailer John Hitchcock who runs the excellent comics shop PARTS UNKNOWN. You can contact him through that site if you would like an interview to feature the book, and of course you can email me here by clicking Summon Parker at the bottom of my sidebar. The heavy lifting of putting the book together was done by Billy Ingram of TV Party.com, and he went above and beyond.

There's not much of an advertising budget to go around, so if you're a blogger or a message board regular we'd be very grateful if you could spread the link, keep threads alive, whatever you have time for. Most of the money (and lots of books) after I cover printing costs will be going to Alex. The book will be available for preorder in Diamond's June Previews under my company name OCTOPUS.

Okay, I'm pretty sure MARVEL ADVENTURES- AVENGERS #1 is out today. I'm almost certain. I hope everyone enjoys it and those of you who know Marvel heroes inside out will be patient as the book does what all Adventures books are supposed to do, which is introduce the characters to people who may never have read a Marvel comic. Don't worry, I bring the inside jokes soon enough! I'm sure you're going to like the gorgeous art of Manuel Garcia and Scott Koblish, who have hit another plateau with this series. It should be on the rack next to that one where Dr. Doom is cruising in a hotrod.

As you may have heard me gripe before, I really wrestle with logos and usually barely get out alive after a bout of creating one. I was never crazy about the original Octopus logo that I used on The Interman, but I ran out of time to keep destroying it. Since the Toth book is coming up, I felt I absolutely HAD to solve the logo dilemma because I'm printing a book featuring one of comics greatest designers, and this tangly cramped image was going to be even more out of place. I'm not going to stick my bad design up, if you want to remember it click over to theinterman.com, they're all over the place there. Since there are other companies called Octopus, one of the first things I did was look at everyone else's logos, which were all generally lame. Unfortunately that put me on the track of trying to make a better looking octopus shape, instead of paring down like you should do with book logos. So it's taken me three years to realize, "I don't have to draw a whole octopus!" and have gone with this single tentacle design which should also work better for the book spines as well. And I only lost a few pints of blood!

Here it is, the comic book that CHAPEL HILL COMICS declares to have COVER OF THE YEAR. No wait, maybe he said Century!


Hats off to Juan Santacruz who really is impressive from front to back in MARVEL ADVENTURES FANTASTIC FOUR #12. And we assure you, any resemblance to this movie is purely coincidental.

Also out is our Adventures THE AVENGERS issue 1, I think. Is it? I haven't been to the comics shop yet.

UPDATE: A couple of great reviews! From Comics Should Be Good and Silver Bullet Comicbooks.

Okay advocates for Gorillas In Comics-- the first installment of AN ONGOING AGENTS OF ATLAS FEATURE AT COMIC BOOK RESOURCES is up today, and I talk a bit more about the cornerstone of our team, GORILLA MAN. If it sounds interesting to you, please spread the word. Marvel is taking a chance here, publishing characters who aren't the core heroes and don't have an X in the title, and we'd like to justify that leap of faith. Did I mention we have a gorilla on the team?

I forgot to mention how well Free Comic Book Day went at Cosmic Monkey the other day. Andy and the gang were doing gangbuster business and had a massive sidewalk sale with good stuff I should have perused before it all went away. On one side of me were Mike Russell and Devon Devereaux, and on the other side were Colleen Coover and Paul Tobin. A heavy hitting line up for a small store, but that's the way Cosmic Monkey is- the place is the Tardis of comics stores with a vast selection. I only did a little sketching since no one knows that I draw anymore, but I did do a DESTINY piece for Rob Castille's endless ENDLESS collection. The premise of course is, that book lock is bound to get stuck one day...

It's always funny to bumble across a shout-out to yourself when you're not expecting it, especially when it's delivered by one of comics' all-time greatest tough guys. If you all haven't been reading THRILLMER, you should add it to your links because it's a great collection of comics.

Sadly, they can never make a movie of Captain Easy unless there's another incarnation of FRED WARD somewhere on the horizon.

This is more a reminder to myself, that I'll be signing at COSMIC MONKEY COMICS at 10227 NE Clackamas Street in Portland this Saturday, from noon to 3:00pm. Come on down, try to get secret information out of me, just try.

And I'm even more excited by AGENTS OF ATLAS now that it's spurred artist Leonard Kirk to start posting on his blog again! We are truly entering a new golden age, my friends. You'll notice that Leonard's blog is spiffier than mine, but I'm going to try to catch up soon. I've got the overbooked Steven Gettis helping me, after all. This place is going to pretty damn Airwolf, I'll tell you that much.

As promised, I'm talking about AGENTS OF ATLAS with Matt Brady over at NEWSARAMA. Initial responses look positive, which is great. Go weigh in, if'n you want.