Alex Toth

            On Saturday morning I posted on Facebook “My Horn Went Crazy”, which is my translation of “À la manière de Brassens” by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll probably start learning his song “A tous les enfants” (To All the Children). 

            I worked out the chords for the intro and most of the first verse of “Celle-là c’est la meilleure” (This is All for the Best) by Serge Gainsbourg. There’s no chorus and I think all the verses have the same chords, so it shouldn’t take long. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the last of four sessions. Tomorrow I begin a two session stretch of playing my electric guitars. Looking forward to being in tune. 

            I weighed 86.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I headed out to No Frills where I price matched seven bags of red grapes with the much cheaper Walmart price of $4.32 a kilo. I also bought two packs of raspberries, bananas, a pack of four-year-old Canadian cheddar, a whole chicken, dental floss, deodorant, olive oil with a spout, a jug of high acid vinegar, two containers of skyr, a bag of Cavendish pub fries, a bag of Miss Vickie’s applewood smoked barbecue chips and another of the regular kind. 

            I weighed 86.55 kilos at 15:00.

            I took a siesta at 15:30 and got up at 17:22. 

            I weighed 87.5 kilos at 17:43, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since March 18. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:48. 

            I converted my download of Fritz Lang’s Siegfried from MKV to WMV. It took half an hour and so while I was waiting I reviewed the song practice videos of my performance of “Laisse tomber les filles” on September 13 and “Leave the Naïve Alone” on September 14. On both days I played them on my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar. On September 13 the take at 46:30 was not great because the Gibson sounded rattly. On September 14 the take at 49:00 wasn’t horrible although the Gibson was still rattly. 

            I imported Siegfried into Movie Maker and copied it to the end of the timeline of my “Seven Shades of Blues” project. I removed everything but the clips of the castle of the warrior woman Brunhilde, which looks very mystical. I inserted the clips into the main timeline to correspond with my line, “The rainbow road to Asgard’s paved with seven shades of blues”. That line is repeated one more time for the end and my idea to finish is to return to my first rainbow wave animation but to convert the frames to sepia tone with bits of blue added. I had a hard time converting the first frame to sepia or even grey scale. One used to be able to do it in Paint but not anymore. There used to be an app called Windows Picture Viewer that could do it but that’s gone. Photos won’t do it either. I found it can be done in Word of all things so I converted the first frame. It came out half the size of the original and so I had to open it in Paint to enlarge it. The other frames should take less time now that I know how to do it. 

            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with marinara sauce, oven fries and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode three of Birdman and the Galaxy Trio. 

            In the first Birdman story, the world is being plagued with Earthquakes. Birdman learns they are not natural and are caused by Professor Kiroff. Birdman finds Kiroff by following the shockwaves. From his mountain hideout Kiroff sees Birdman coming and sends his metal men to attack. The metal men shoot force rays that stagger Birdman but his solar beam destroys two of them. One of them throws a boulder that Birdman catches and throws back, smashing the rest. By intercom Kiroff suggests Birdman team up with him. Birdman pretends to go along in order to get inside. But inside Birdman is trapped in a cage with walls that close in to crush him. He has been out of the sun too long and his powers are draining. When Birdman takes too long to return, his pet eagle Avenger breaks through an air vent to Kiroff’s hideout. Kiroff begins to fire a laser at the bird but as Avenger dodges the blasts they burn holes in the ceiling that cause the sunlight to shine through, bathing and partially recharging Birdman until he has the strength to break from of the cage. Then he flies out, fully recharges and returns. He destroys Kiroff’s quake making machine then locks him in a cage for the authorities to find him. 

            In the Galaxy Trio story, dead volcanos are erupting all over Meteorus, which is Meteor Man’s home planet. It turns out that there is a kingdom of Moltens beneath the surface of Meteorus who used to rule the planet. Now they are trying to cover the planet with lava so they can reclaim the surface. The Trio’s ship is attacked with molten missiles but they put up their shields in time. They beam down and when Moltens attack them Meteor Man says he’s never seen anything like them. The greeting party is easily defeated, then Vapour Man uses his freezing vapour to make a cool path to the centre of the planet. The Moltens cause a cave-in but Meteor Man grows to hold up the ceiling while his friends escape. The Moltens throw hot lava balls at him until he surrenders. The Moltens turn up the volcanoes but Vapour Man freezes them all (It’s either a very small planet or he’s very fast). Meteor Man fights the Moltens and forces the king to surrender. They are offered their own uninhabited molten habitat on the sun of that system and they agree to go there. 

            In the second Birdman story, Avenger is missing. Then Birdman is contacted by the criminal Zoddo who shows him he has Avenger in a cage. In exchange for Avenger’s freedom Zoddo wants military secrets from Washington or else he will kill Avenger. Birdman meets with some generals, grabs the plans and flies away. Birdman is ordered shot down. They fire at him but Birdman refuses to fire back at his own countrymen so all he can do is take evasive manoeuvres and use his solar shield. He gives the plans to Zoddo but Zoddo has Birdman tied up and placed with Avenger in a space capsule that is set to explode. Avenger can just reach Birdman’s ropes to cut them with his beak and they escape just in time. Zoddo retreats to a pillbox and fires at Birdman but Birdman bends two of the cannons to face each other. The pillbox explodes and Birdman locks Zoddo up. He returns the plans to the Pentagon and explains that he never gave the real plans to Zoddo but switched them just before. But if that was his plan why didn’t he just prepare fake plans in the first place without stealing them from the Pentagon? He probably cost the government millions of dollars in ammunition. 

            The creator of Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, as well as Space Ghost, Dino Boy, Sealab 2020, and the Herculoids, was Alex Toth. A teacher in his junior high poster class encouraged him to become an artist and so for senior high he enrolled in the School of Industrial Art in New York. He wanted to be a newspaper comic strip artist but the industry was dying and so he got into comic books instead. He was hired by DC and drew the golden age Green Lantern. He drew the Justice Society issue in which Black Canary joined the team. He drew the golden age Flash, Dr. Midnight, and Atom. He co-created Rex the Wonder Dog in 1952. He drew the first issue of The Witching Hour and created the Three Witches. His work on the story Dirty Job for the Our Army At War comic was considered a masterpiece. After DC he moved to Hollywood where he directed the Space Angel animated series. He drew stories for Warren Publishing’s black and white magazines Eerie, Creepy and The Rook. He’s considered to be one of the greatest comic book artists of all time. He said it’s not enough to be a great artist. Filmmaker Michael Almereyda said that Alex Toth’s storytelling taght him how to direct movies. One also needs to know how to tell a story. He wrote the columns “Before I Forget” and “Who Cares? I Do!”.