"How a TV Cartoon is Created" by Alex Toth and Bob Foster (Part 1 of 2)

"How a TV Cartoon is Created" by Alex Toth and Bob Foster is a great oversized 10-page illustrated essay that first appeared as a bonus in the 1976 treasury-sized Super-Friends Limited Collectors Edition comic book.

This is a classic guide to how Saturday morning cartoons were produced in the seventies by Hanna-Barbera studios. Most of what is talked about in this manifesto is still true to one degree or another...depends on the studio and how much outsourcing is being done. The biggest difference is in the camera work, as that is almost entirely being done digitally now.

If you've ever read any of Alex Toth's writing, it makes a lot of sense that he had help with the text. Toth was an amazing artist, but he rambles like crazy in his writings and letters. You gotta love that Alex Toth hand-lettering, though!

Bob Foster is listed as the co-creator along with Alex Toth -- and Bob Foster knows what he's talking about when it comes to cartoons. Bob Foster is the creator of Myron Moose, he was a layout artist at Hanna Barbera and Depatie-Freling throughout the 1970's, wrote the Donald Duck comic strip during the 1980's, he was a writer-artist and editor for Disney comics in the U.S. and overseas at Egmont, and he's been a storyboard artist on dozens of shows since then. Whew!

As far as I know, "TV Cartoons" has only been reprinted once in recent years, so for all those animation fans and Alex Toth fans who have never had the pleasure, "here is the how and why of animated TV Cartoons...the comic strips that move."

The high-resolution scans are below.
Just click on any of the pages below to open up
a HUGE hi-res page of Alex Toth's TV Cartoons.

Stay tuned for Part Two of "How a TV Cartoon is Created"
...the rest of this 10-pager is coming in a few days!

UPDATE: Part TWO of Alex Toth on TV Cartoons is HERE