Yesterday in this space, we asked if the comic/animation experts out there could guess the identity of the artist who drew a certain C.B. Bears coloring book. I received over 150 guesses which included Mike Sekowsky, Wallace Wood, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, John Buscema, Ernie Colón, John Romita, Dan Spiegle, Gil Kane, Tex Avery, C.C. Beck, Mike Royer, Jerry Eisenberg, Bob Singer, Alfredo Alcala, Doug Wildey, Don Martin, Russ Heath, Ric Estrada, Sergio Aragonés, Stan Lee, Mike Ploog and Dave Stevens. One person offered to bet his life's savings it was Iwao Takamoto and two separate people guessed it was me, which I guess means they didn't read the question very closely…and also have never seen the way I draw.
And, oh yeah, some got the correct answer. The correct answer is Alex Toth.
I said I'd list the first three folks who named the guy but we had a lot of folks who did send in the right answer also sent in from one to twelve other guesses. So I'm only going to credit the first three who guessed Toth and no one else. Those would be Kevin Nowlan, Douglass Abramson and Carolyn Wallace. There were about ten others who came along later and thought it was Alex.
This was done during a period when Alex was toying with the idea of moving away from his famous adventure style and trying some things in a cartoonier vein. His friend and former employer, Warren Tufts, had done that. Warren had done newspaper strips like Casey Ruggles in a somewhat realistic style but found that (a) it didn't tap into all he could do and (b) it meant a lot of work to earn very little money. So he segued over to drawing things like Pink Panther comic books and Toth had a momentary impulse to try something different.
I was editing comic books for Hanna-Barbera at the time and he asked me for a job on Yogi Bear or something of the sort. I gulped and said, unconvincingly, "Uh, okay…just as soon as I have an open assignment." Before that happened, Iraj Paran — who was in charge of graphics and merchandise art for the studio — had a sudden and urgent need to have a batch of coloring books drawn, practically overnight. Alex grabbed the job of drawing the C.B. Bears one and batted it out over a weekend. I don't think he enjoyed working on that kind of material. At least, he never mentioned anything to me ever again about drawing Yogi Bear.
Also, Paul Dushkind didn't have a guess but wondered why the bears all had five fingers on each hand when cartoon animals are supposed to have four. Answer: Alex didn't draw a lot of cartoon animals so he kept forgetting.