13 COVERS AND PAGES: A souped up BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE…
On the first day of summer, I posted a piece about hot-rod comics, something I’d wanted to do for a long time. My plans were naturally going to include Alex Toth’s stint on DC’s short-lived Hot Wheels series from 1970.
Then I noticed that his birthday was right around Dead Man’s Curve, so I figured, “Hey, let’s do TWO hot-rod stories.” (Toth was born 98 years ago, on June 25, 1928.)
I expected that I would be called out for excluding Toth on Sunday, and I laughed when I was — because I knew that showing off Toth’s work on its own would really be something. He was one of the masters for a reason; his work on a little licensed series shows that no job was too small for an artist for his caliber.
So start your engines and dig these 13 COVERS AND PAGES. Those spreads are a real gas!
Inked by Dick Giordano
Inked by Giordano
Inked by Toth
Issue #1
Issue #1
Issue #2
Issue #2
Issue #4
Issue #4
Issue #4
Issue #5
Issue #5
Issue #5
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MORE
— SUMMER’S HERE! Let’s Go Surfin’ and Hot-Roddin’! Click here.
— 13 ALEX TOTH Animated Projects That Could Have Been. Click here.
June 25, 2026
Very near the top of the comic series I’d love to read, whether in a new collection or, better still, vintage copies (which are prohibitively expensive).
June 25, 2026
Sorry about calling you out. Yes I was one. This more than makes up for it. (And I can still heat the Saturday Morning show’s theme song.)
June 25, 2026
Oh, don’t be sorry at all! I knew it was coming from somewhere and laughed when it did!
June 25, 2026
Alex Toth may have been the single greatest cartoonist who ever lived. Just an absolute master of draftsmanship, design, and storytelling. The only other cartoonists who come close to matching him are the late Darwyn Cooke and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. Hot Wheels was never my favorite Toth work, but even “lesser” Toth is better than almost everyone else.
Also: DC, when is that Alex Toth book that you announced last year coming out?
June 27, 2026
I am so gutted that it was canceled. I have few “sight unseen buys” but that was going to be one of them.
June 25, 2026
Desperately need a reprint of this material!
June 25, 2026
Alex Toth doing the Hot Wheels comic is like bringing an elephant gun to a squirrel hunt
June 25, 2026
I have to admit that Alex Toth’s name was not one that I remembered and his work was something that I would see as a youth but didn’t stick with me. Wow, was I missing out. Thank you for the new rabbit hole that this sent me down. The layouts for the Hot Wheels issues alone are amazing!
June 25, 2026
Love the cars, love the TV series, and love this comic book series! Alex was pure realism when required, yet cartoony enough to draw the Hot Wheels gang! Be nice to get this collected for the 60th anniversary on nice quality paper, as well as a Blu-ray remaster of the cartoon. Mattel? DC? Make it so! I need a new Jack Rabbit Special…
June 25, 2026
Every chance I get, I tell the online community — and DC & Mattel in particular — that since they ‘ve had an ongoing business relationship for over 20 years now, that they should work together to get these comics reprinted as either a trade collection or facsimiles (or both). Both Toth and Neal Adams, who worked on the final issue, are considered masters of the field and their work needs to be seen and studied by modern audiences.
June 28, 2026
Multiple owners complicates things. Hot Wheels remains among the last of Alex Toth’s and Neal Adams’ unreprinted work. I bit the bullet last year and dropped three figures for the set.