lareviewofbooks:

Howard Chaykin
Image: Alex Toth
Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell
Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth
IDW Publishing, May, 2011. 328 pp.

I am and have been for many years an avid admirer of the work of Alex Toth. I knew him — not all that well, but well enough to realize at a certain point that avoiding contact with Alex Toth was a positive and healthy lifestyle choice.

Toth was a difficult man. He was the Citizen Kane of difficult men. In a career that lasted over half a century, he left behind a trail of angry, hurt, confused and disappointed friends and acquaintances, acolytes and worshipers. I know a lot of that crowd, and after the grumbling, bitching and moaning, all justified, about what a miserable fuck Alex was, to a man (they’re mostly male), the next words are always something like, “But that shot of the boots in Battle Flag…” or “Oh my god, Thunderjet…” or…

You get the picture. Alex Toth was admired and worshiped for his brilliant work, despite a personality so unpleasant editors would not work him. They knew that what he delivered would be superior to anyone else’s pages, but they’d pass simply to avoid the mishegas of having to put up with his aberrant behavior and abusive temperament. Which brings us to the title of this book, Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth, the first of three oversized hardcover volumes paying tribute to his brilliant work. This volume covers the forties and fifties, when the artist was in his late teens to mid twenties. To say that Toth found his métier early is to grossly understate the case. We are witnessing a truly prodigious talent in the first wave of, yes, unqualified genius.

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(Source: lareviewofbooks)