Alex Toth was my friend."

Who knows how many people, usually aspiring artists and writers, said that about the guy who mailed them "kudos" for their work, along with tips and trade secrets, often on the front and back (and sometimes the stamp) of a 3" x 5" postcard - punctuated with his trademark duck (often looking like road kill in recent years )?

Envelopes and real stamps were reserved for sending his valuable 6-inch by 9-inch treasures - his doodles and sketches and artwork drawn with black felt markers on thin Mead pad paper. Along with his fedora-clad heroes, Toth had an old-fashioned 1940s way of talking - "skiddooisms", as someone called them. We were all "kiddo," though was "tho," the graphic business...