Setting the Standard: Alex Toth [first edition]

Part of the first generation to grow up with comic books, Alex Toth came to the medium with a fresh eye and enough talent and discipline to graphically strip it down to its bare essentials. His efforts reached fruition at Standard Comics, creating an entire school of imitators. Setting the Standard collects this highly influential body of work in one substantial volume. Toth began his professional career at fifteen in 1945 for Heroic Comics, but quickly advanced to superhero work for DC. Responding to the endless criticism of editors, the young artist strove toward a technique free of "showoff surface tricks, clutter, and distracting picture elements." Simply put, he learned "how to tell a story, to the exclusion of all else." After falling out with DC in 1952, Toth moved West. He freelanced almost exclusively for Standard over the next two years, contributing classic work for its crime, horror, science fiction, and war titles. But perhaps most revelatory to the reader will be the romance collaborations with writer Kim Ammodt, Toth's personal favorites. "I came to prefer them for the quieter, more credible, natural human equations they dealt with — emotions, subtleties of gesture, expression, attitude."