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The Genius Returns In Alex Toth's Bravo

Article Image f2aaby Vince Brusio

You may already know that the Alex Toth, Genius trilogy is a multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning series. But you might have missed that Alex Toth’s Bravo For Adventure HC (APR150475) is a Featured Item this month from IDW Publishing. For those of you that may need some background on this unearthed classic, we point you towards an interview we conducted with Dean Mullaney, the foremost authority on all-things Alex Toth for IDW.

Bravo For Adventure HC (APR150475) is in comic shops June 3.

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PREVIEWSworld: For those new readers who may not be familiar with “The Genius” tag that’s associated with Alex Toth, can you explain why such kudos are still associated with the legendary writer/artist?

Dean Mullaney: Because he created a body of work that places him in just about everyone’s Top Five Greatest Comics Artists of All Time. As comic books entered their second decade of existence, most adventure artists were still working in the style established by Milton Caniff and sometimes filtered through Will Eisner. Nothing wrong with it — it was a great style! But starting in 1950 Alex Toth stripped that approach down to its core and added a unique sense of modern design and composition; the way he staged his characters, the perspective and “camera” movements he used, were all new.

Article Image 5530Alex Toth emerged as the foremost proponent of modernism that influenced almost every one of his contemporaries and has continued to have an impact on the generations that followed. In animation, his 1960s model sheets for Hanna-Barbera are still passed around as swipe sources from animator to young animator in the 21st Century. He’s considered an “Artist’s Artist,” one of the few comics artists from whom just about everyone has learned something, whether it’s Darwin Cooke and Bruce Timm, or Howard Chaykin and Paul Pope.

PREVIEWSworld: If you were speaking at a panel, and gave a presentation on Alex Toth’s Bravo For Adventure HC (APR150475), how would you present it to the audience? For the young cell phone generation who might see the book’s cover as archaic, what context would you use in explaining how this work stands up to the test of time?

Dean Mullaney: We’ve gained a lot by having comics accessible on cell phones, iPads, etc.—especially for comics specifically designed for the format. Yet for works that were originally designed for print, we’ve lost something as well. You can’t simply shrink the art down and think it will have the same impact on a 2” x 3” screen.

Article Image d7bbBravo for Adventure is best appreciated by looking at the entire page at the size Toth intended. Part of his genius is his ability to visually move the reader through the story by the strength of his staging within each panel, as well as how each panel fits into the entire page’s composition. I’d say that for certain comics, it wouldn’t hurt to put your cell phone down and fully appreciate it on the printed page.

PREVIEWSworld: Bravo For Adventure focuses on Jesse Bravo, who is described as a “pilot and reluctant swashbuckler.” What is it about this character’s traits or morality that audiences will find appealing?

Dean Mullaney: One look at Jesse Bravo’s devilish smile and you can’t help but like the guy. And when it becomes clear that he values integrity and loyalty above all else…you’re rooting for him the rest the way. The story is not a deep morality play. Alex designed it to be a purely enjoyable escapist adventure story. Good guys, bad guys, love interest, action, and suspense. It’s a heck of a ride, with art that will totally knock you out.

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PREVIEWSworld: The stories that are in this collection have been out-of-print for decades. Could you tell us what went on behind-the-scenes that helped bring this hardcover to the pages of the PREVIEWS catalog? Who took point, and why?

Dean Mullaney: Alex had long wanted to see the stories collected in a book, and for many years tried, without success, to write additional tales. For the rest of his life, Bravo remained the one project of which he was most proud. In fact, he kept all the original art for the stories, but the collection never came about. This new edition has its genesis four years ago, when I first approached his children about producing the biography/artbook that become the Alex Toth, Genius trilogy that Bruce Canwell and I produced. About a year later, LOAC Art Director Lorraine Turner and I flew to meet with two of Alex’s children to discuss Bravo. We wanted to complete the Genius books first, and it took some time to iron out the details, but it’s finally here!

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