Spiteful witches, monsters lurking in abandoned towers, homicidal dolls, crazed lighthouse keepers (as if there’s any other kind!), dissatisfied mushroom-sitting gnomes, child-eating ogres, gods, seals, and Inuits - Sergio Toppi wrote and drew a lotta imaginative fantasy-based comics from the late ‘70s to the late ‘90s, and a bunch of ‘em are here in The Collected Toppi, Volume 1: The Enchanted World.
Of the 11 comics, I only really enjoyed about three, in terms of their story, but even for the ones that ran the gamut from middling to tedious, Toppi’s remarkable art is on every page so if the words don’t do anything for you, the visuals will hold the attention more effectively instead.
And Toppi was an artist first, writer second, for sure. The meticulous lines and level of detail might suggest insecurity in a lesser artist but you definitely don’t get that impression with Toppi. The stories are too ambitious, the layouts and visions too confident, and the range - taking in so many different kinds of animals, settings, and creeds of humans from numerous cultures and eras with near-photorealistic imagery - all speak to a master artist’s skill.
The three stories I liked were Brocelan Woods (1979), Black & Tans (1981), and The Dollmaker (1982). Brocelan Woods is about a family who go on a picnic in the woods and encounter a witch - with an unexpectedly comedic ending. Black & Tans sees two Irish soldiers encountering an orphan outside her family’s empty home - and a haunting nearby tower that draws them in. The story’s horror is successful for never showing what’s in the shadows, leaving it up to the reader to make their own conclusions.
The Dollmaker is my favourite of the bunch - a dark twist on Pinocchio where a dollmaker and his enchanted doll prey on rich elderly women. Until the doll starts to question what they’re doing… Toppi liked to throw in last page twists quite often and it works best in this story.
I’m not going to go through each of the other eight stories, but suffice it to say Toppi is able to capture a convincing fable-like tone in them typical of fairy tales. And, even though they weren’t as fun to read as the better stories, they were (mostly) unpredictable so I was still sorta intrigued to see what final twists Toppi would lob the reader. And of course the tremendous art is ever-present.
The Collected Toppi, Volume 1: The Enchanted World is a decent place to start for anyone interested in finding out more about this Italian master. I’d also recommend it to Hellboy fans as a number of these fantastical tales reminded me of the kind of stories you see throughout that series.
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