Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Weird War Tales

Alex Toth — Illuminating

Original Art and The Artists

Weird War Tales #6, August 1972

One picture is worth a thousand words.  At least, that’s what they say. (“They” say a lot.)

In the case of this beautiful Alex Toth war page, I will eliminate 999 of them.

All we need to really say is: Astonishing.

Every single time I examine the page, I marvel at how Toth created those lighting effects using only India ink and negative space.

Every. Single. Time.

The art tricks the brain into seeing the illumination as three dimensional as if it were celluloid in a darkened theater. Hell, most cinematography fails to capture lighting as brilliantly as this.

Oh, and the storytelling and camera angles are terrific, too. And of course, the sound effects in the trademark Toth style, add to the drama.

Astonishing.

The five-page Toth story (written by Bob Haney) serves as a “framing device” for the other stories in the issue.

    José García-López — Fear No Evil

    Original Art and The Artists

    Weird War Tales #44, February 1976

    Weird War Tales wasn’t in my wheelhouse as a kid. I liked most of the DC war books, but I especially enjoyed the realistic stories, many, if not most, imbued with an anti-war spirit. 

    Weird War, with its robots, ghouls and goblins, just didn’t do it for me.

    Come to think of it, I wasn’t a Haunted Tank guy either. Like I said, realism was more my cup of tea in the war books. (Meanwhile I was a big fan of DC’s “conventional” horror titles like House of Secrets and House of Mystery. Go figure. And, as always I digress.)

    But… as I became more fascinated by the visual aspects of comic book storytelling, I realized I had missed a few things, including some great art in that title.

    Here’s a nice example from José García-López on a page that clearly inspired Joe Kubert’s cover. (And not too weird at this point in the story, yet.)

    José García-López is just great in any genre.