Sergio Toppi

In a perfect world, Sergio Toppi would be a household name in English-speaking comics circles. For starters, the look of modern American comic books, from Frank Miller, Walt Simonson and Bill Sienkiewicz to Denys Cowan, R.M. Guera and Sean Murphy, would not be the same without his massive, unmistakeable inspiration. And yet Toppi’s own work remains largely unknown beyond a coterie of admirers. There is a sad irony that his first ever graphic novel to be finally put into English this year - Sharaz-de: Tales from the Arabian Nights (cover illustration below), out this week in the shops from Archaia - did not see print before his death on August 21st 2012, less than two months before his 80th birthday. His passing prompted numerous eulogies from fan favourites like Francesco Francavilla, who acknowledged “I will be forever in your debt”, and Ashley Wood, who confirmed, “Mr Toppi was and is a great inspiration to me.”

So why is Toppi not better known internationally? It hasn’t helped that so little of his output has been translated, nor that he came to prefer the freedom to create all sorts of separate projects or one-off stories rather than be anchored to one recurring character that might have won him more fame. On top of this, his unconventional mature approach to layout and illustration meant that he received few commissions from mainstream American publishers. Toppi’s U.S. credits come to little more than one Sin City pin-up for Miller (below) and five covers for Marvel’s historical sequel 1602: New World, giving us his takes on the Hulk and a cowboy Spider-Man. According to expert David Roach, Toppi did produce around ten strips for the British educational weekly Tell Me Why circa 1969-70 and a couple of his Italian comics were reprinted in Eagle and possibly Tell Me Why annuals during the mid-Seventies, but aside from this Alan Moore portrait for Gary Spencer-Millidge’s tribute book (below), that seems to be all, folks!

A self-taught artist born in Milan in 1932, Toppi did not begin his professional career as a comic artist but spent much of the Fifties as an illustrator in advertising and animation. He would adapt his drawing to suit commissions, ranging between documentary accuracy notably on educational artwork for children’s encyclopedias, and caricatural cartooning for humorous books given as prizes in promotional campaigns for products, for example starring Calimero, the cute eggshell-headed black chicken. These combined styles suited his first professional comics job in 1960, drawing the magical adventures of Il Mago Zurli (below), single-page episodes based on a popular presenter on kids’ television, in the weekly Il Corriere dei Piccoli, while his thoroughly researched period illustration lent itself to numerous historical stories such as the ‘True Story of Pietro Micca’ scripted by Milo Milani, a biography of the 17th century soldier and Italian national hero who sacrificed himself to defend Turin.

Toppi’s unique artistry gradually emerged, especially when he joined the weekly Messaggero dei ragazzi and was granted more freedom. His bravura use of negative space to add potency to areas of white and of characters and other elements breaking out of their ‘boxes’ and disrupting the edges of the panels and pages led to his being awarded the ‘Yellow Kid’ prize for the best Italian comic artist of the year at the International Comics Show in Lucca in 1975. It would be the first of many accolades.

While Toppi’s artistry graced numerous fine one-shot stories, from scripts by others for the pages of Italy’s main anthologies, it became vital for him to take control of the writing. In the experimental monthly Alter Alter he embarked on his personal re-tellings of seven lesser-known tales from The Arabian Nights (sample pages below), narrated by the woman Sharaz-de who must tell a fresh story every night to save her life.

Toppi also joined the high adventure magazine Orient Express, where he devised the intriguing exploits of The Colllector (below), a sly time-traveller in bowler hat and prominent bullhorn moustache, who hunts down fascinating artifacts. Archaia will release this series in 2013.

As his distinctive voice matured, so did his ideas. Toppi deserves credit as one of a triumvirate of Italian innovators, the others being Guido Crepax and Gianni De Luca, who started in the Sixties and Seventies radically reinventing how the pages of comics operated. Toppi’s innovations included liberating his comics from their typical regulated sequential structure, from the need to organise a page with borders, gutters and grids. Instead, he emphasises the bigger picture, the total, overall interaction of panels, producing a heightened impact and contrast and the space and time for appreciation and contemplation. He somehow seems to sculpt forms, faces and figures out of a dazzling choreography of marks, lines and crosshatching of different weights and finishes.