bravo for adventure

     Alex Toth is one of the great masters of the comics artform. He knows exactly where to put every single line on the page. In the 47 pages of the main story in Bravo For Adventure, there are exactly two times that every single detail is not flawless. The first, unfortunately, is on the first page and it involves the awkward layout of some text. The second is near the end and is just a hastily-drawn face. This is as close to perfection as artwork drawn by human hands can get. 

      There are many moments between those two slight missteps that can only inspire the sort of stink-face normally reserved for guitar solos. Toth's philosophy of leaving out all extraneous details and drawing the hell out of the rest is in full flower here. Furthermore, he is finally the master of his own career, free of the third-rate scripts and editorial meddling he railed against his whole life. Bravo For Adventure is the story Toth wanted to tell in the way he wanted to tell it.

     This was meant to be the beginning of a franchise starring stunt pilot and adventurer Jesse Bravo that chronicled his ups and downs in the dirty and desperate 1930s. Toth finished another minor backup story included here and a few sketches but failed to get the full project off the ground.

       The script for Bravo For Adventure is not third-rate. It's second-rate. It's a B-movie from the Golden Age of Hollywood. The plot has the requisite twists and turns and toughguys. It makes sure to shoehorn an action sequence in from time to time. It doesn't know where to put the climax but it does continue along entertainingly.  Toth's hero is as pure-hearted and lantern-jawed as Superman himself, although in slightly different proportions. This comic is throbbingly old-fashioned hero porn.

     Bravo For Adventure is stridently recommended to aspiring comics artists for its visual storytelling. It is astonishingly good-looking and full of cartooning ideas. It is extremely bold in its use of black ink. Any comics fan  who follows artists rather than characters ought to take a glance at Toth's later works.