Staff Picks (April): Bravo For Adventure HC

When it came to doing comics, Alex Toth got it—it’s all about the storytelling. If I had to pare my list of favorite comic book artists down to my top 5, Alex Toth would be number one. (Sheldon Mayer, Joe Kubert, Steve Ditko, and Jack Kirby would round out the top 5).

I’ve been collecting comics with Alex Toth’s work for years, from All American Western with Johnny Thunder to Walt Disney’s Zorro. It was fun it was going through boxes of miscellaneous comics at conventions. It was also just as exciting when I’d see a new work from Toth, be it Black Canary in Adventure Comics or Torpedo from Catalan. And then there is Bravo for Adventure which I first came across in Warren Magazine’s The Rook.

Bravo For Adventure was Toth’s homage to the action-adventure stories of movie studio glory days. Toth's Jesse Bravo could have easily been played by Errol Flynn, whose Adventures of Robin Hood is one of my all-time favorite films.

While Dragon Lady Press would provide Toth's fans with as much of Bravo as was available at the time, we knew there was more but nothing more was forthcoming. Until now.

The folks behind The Library of American Comics with IDW Publishing are producing the definitive collection of Alex Toth’s Bravo For Adventure. This will be the perfect companion to their Alex Toth Genius collections. Collecting all previously published stories along with prelims, designs, and unfinished story fragments we get to see what could and should have been. There are even samples of Toth’s color work done for that originally planned French edition from 1975. Just goes to show that Toth knew Black & White and Toth knew color.

This is the perfect addition to your library shelves right next to the three volumes in the Genius of Alex Toth and maybe even a slipcase for those of us who bought the books prior to the slipcase being produced.

—Steve Leaf

Publisher: IDW Publishing Item Code: APR150475 Release Date: 7/15/15 SRP: $34.99