By Alex Toth, Rick Geary, Charles Vess, Trina Robbins & others (Nautilus Dreams)
ISBN: 0-913161-00-4
For comics purists and especially fans of comic art few books can match the impact and content of this delightful one-off from the early 1980s. I know nothing about its genesis or editor Howard Feltman, but at the dawn of creator owned-publishing, he managed to compile a truly staggering pool of talent for a (regrettably) single engagement that still resonates with power and charm today.
Behind the Frank Brunner cover and Terry Austin frontispiece, these crisp black and white pages contain firstly two incredible tales of Alex Toth’s Bravo For Adventure; an origin and a truly magnificent, surreal design masterpiece, wherein a blow to the head sends the dashing aviator to the furthest reaches of reality.
Toth was the undisputed god of minimalist line and his breathtaking mastery of dark and light is given full rein in these incomparable yarns. Hard on his heels is ‘Murder in the Garage’, an impressive early crime confession from Rick Geary, whose Treasury of Victorian Murder and Treasury of XXth Century Murder graphic procedurals are a constant source of delight to readers of true crime tales and cartoon aficionados everywhere.
Stardust star Charles Vess follows with the first of two brief vignettes, ‘Sugar in the Morning’ and Howard Chaykin provided an eerie psycho-thriller entitled ‘No Rest for the Weary…’ painted in glorious, psychedelic colour in a special glossy insert, after which Toren Smith and Lela Dowling contributed a whimsical and decidedly different ‘Cheshire Cat’ tale.
Barb Hawkins Karl interviewed P. Craig Russell with a liberal sprinkling of beautiful pencil studies and a stirring fantasy illustration in pen and ink, Trina Robbins brilliantly pastiched the Maltese Falcon in ‘Queenie Hart and the Andromedan Grzblch’ and John Jay Muth traded his signature watercolours for tone and pencil in the pensive picture poem ‘The Ghost’.
This enchanting collection concludes with Vess’ quirky ‘Blimp Tales’ and a Dowling unicorn endpiece. The tremendous outpouring of superlative art and stories that came from the rise of independent publishers in the 1980s seldom reached the qualitative peak of Voyages and this book is still readily available at incredibly modest prices. No true art lover or collector can afford to be without it.
All art and stories © 1983 the respective creators/copyright holders. All Rights Reserved.