Richard Sala has a warning for us all

 This first month of the new year is almost over... and there are few indications that 2021 will be a better year than the one we left behind. But you can still keep things from being worse than they have to be. Cartoonist Richard Sala wants you stay on your guard, because creeps and killers may still make things hard!

A slightly revised version of "Beware! Beware!" in included "The Ghastly Ones & Other Fiendish Frolics", a collection of several of Richard Sala's spoofs of illustrated children's books. Click here to read more about it, in a previous post at this blog.

Americans react to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election...

 

A Very Peculia Halloween

Richard Sala was a writer and artist whose work consistently had fun with and payed homage to pulp fiction; 1950s and 1960s pop culture; and horror films and thrillers from the dawn of the genre up through the present day. He worked mostly in comics, but he also illustrated children's books and did cartooning. He passed away on May 7, 2020, at the age of 65, leaving behind a legacy of unique artwork and highly entertaining graphic novels and short stories.

Sala's perhaps best known character was Peculia, a teenaged girl who had the bad luck of constantly running into monsters and maniacs everywhere she went, all while being stalked by a masked mystery man and his hirelings. Most of Sala's tales featuring her have been collected in "Peculia" and "Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires", which we recommend you read, because they're full of creepy fun.

In the meantime, here are some pen-and-ink drawings of Peculia with monsters and/or admirers in celebration of Halloween and in memory of Richard Sala. 

Also, if they ever make a Peculia movie, they better use Lenka's "Trouble is a Friend of Mine" as the theme song.

A close second candidate for the perfect "Peculia" theme song is "All Night Long" from Peter Murphy... although it's more the story as seen from the point of view of our heroine's not-so-secret admirer, Obsuras.

(For samples of Sala's color work--including more portraits of Peculia--click here to visit our sister blog, Terror Titans. Depending how far into the future from when I type these words you are, there may even be a review or two of Sala's color books.)

Introducing: Judy Drood, Girl Detective

One of the signature characters of Richard Sala was Judy Drood, a character who was part tribute to, and part spoof of, the ever-popular teenaged detective Nancy Drew. He created her in 1993 in what was intended as a one-shot short story for "Black Cat Crossing", but, when a friend several years later asked to read more about Judy Drood, Sala was more than happy to oblige.

Today, we present Judy's origin tale, the precursor to not one but two of Sala's major works--"Mad Night" (originally serialized in issues 1-12 of "The Evil Eye" as "Reflections in a  Glass Scorpion") and "The Graverobber's Daughter" (a graphic novel published in 2005).

Meanwhile, in the Shadows...

(Look for reviews of Judy Drood's adventures in future posts on this blog. Meanwhile, join us next Saturday for more Richard Sala art and A Very Peculia Halloween!) 

Saturday Serial: My Father's Brain

"My Father's Brain" by Richard Sala originally appeared in Blab #8 (1994) and today, it reaches its surprising conclusion. Click on the strips for larger versions. Please come back next Saturday when we'll present a complete Sala story!

MY FATHER'S BRAIN: PART THREE, THE CONCLUSION

By Richard Sala

Meanwhile, in the Shadows!

By Richard Sala

Saturday Serial: My Father's Brain

"My Father's Brain" by Richard Sala originally appeared in Blab #8 (1994). We're serializing it as part of our annual effort to spread the encourage the Halloween Spirit. Click on the strips for larger versions. Please come back next Saturday for the shocking finale to this ninja-laden tale of stolen-brain intrigue.

MY FATHER'S BRAIN: PART TWO

By Richard Sala

To Be Continued...

Meanwhile, in the Shadows!

If you like old vampire movies and great comics, you're going to love this book!

Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires (2005. Fantagraphics)
Story and Art: Richard Sala
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When a member of the Baby Sitters Club mysteriously disappears, Peculia is recruited by the remaining three girls to help with a special assignment that required all four members: The new family in Groon Grove have needs that require special attention... 

Richard Sala's reluctant monster-fighter returns for a full-length adventure in "Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires", and she once again find herself under threat when all she wanted to do was hang out with other teen girls and do some babysitting/caregiving. While Peculia may not have the fun experience she was hoping for, I think readers of this book who enjoy classic horror films and well-crafted comics will have a great time reading it. Sala once again delivers a deftly told tale that delivers chills and chuckles in equal measure.

"Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires" is a fun tribute to classic horror and vampire films, with nods to the greats from Universal Pictures during the 1940s and Hammer Films during the 1960s, as well as some familiar elements from 1980s slasher flicks. Sala had a love of and respect for these films, and it shows in his work. He was also one of an ever-diminishing crop of writers/artists who understood and had fully mastered the art of the comic book medium, knowing how to lay out a page to keep the reader's eye moving to what's important; knowing when to use a long shot, medium shot, or close up; and knowing how to pace a story one page at a time to encourage the reader to keep turning them to see what happens next. I feel like Sala did some of his best work on the Peculia stories in general and this book in particular. He uses a starker style than in many of his other works, with lots of contrasting solid whites and blacks that sometimes feel like woodcuts; and his scripts are more economical and done in style that harkens back to old-time newspaper comic strips where, supported by traditional visual cues that were also originated in the newspaper strips. While this is true of much of Sala's work from the early 1990s onward, it is most evident in the Peculia stories, I feel.

This approach--of letting the art speak for itself--heightens both the humor and horror in this book, making its best moments even better. And there are some really good moments in this book. 

Sala has some wonderful, wordless scenes featuring George, a young boy who is being baby-sat by one of the soon-to-be-vampire-victims. George fills the role of a comic relief character who spends the story running from horror scene to horror scene, but, who in the end plays a pivotal role in the success of the hero--a kind of character that was a mainstay of the 1940s horror films that served as part of Sala's inspiration here. Sala, however, does a much better job with George than many of the screenwriters did with such characters Back in the Day; George is cute and funny where the old-time comic relief characters were oftentimes more annoying than anything else.

Other highlights are Peculia's mostly silent fights against the vampires; she's always been a girl of few words, but this is more true here than in almost any of her previous appearances. Her silence alternatively makes the horror and humor of her various scenes far greater than it would have been if Sala had caused a quip or a cry to issue forth from her.

Few books are perfect, but the only major flaw I find with this the presentation of how Peculia dispatches two of the vampires. Sala plays a similar gag back-to-back, and I would have preferred a little more variety, or at least a little more distance between the two. (The first time he plays it, it unfolds over what are two of the very best pages in the book.. which could also be why it doesn't work as well the second time around.)

In balance, however, "Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires" is an excellent read that I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys classic vampire movies and well-done graphic novels/comic books.

Saturday Serial: My Father's Brain

"My Father's Brain" by Richard Sala originally appeared in Blab #8 (1994). We're featuring it here over the next few Saturdays (along with other stray samples of Sala's wild and spooky work) as part of our annual effort to spread the encourage the Halloween Spirit in the young and the old. Click on the strips for larger versions. Please come back next Saturday for Part Two.

MY FATHER'S BRAIN: PART ONE

By Richard Sala

To Be Continued...

Meanwhile, in the Shadows!

Richard Sala's creations is a stew of all the things that get covered by this blog. We should have done more to spotlight his work than just feature a couple stray cartoons during 2009 and 2010. But... the Saturday Serials give us the perfect opportunity to put him front and center!

The 31 Nights of Halloween are Almost Here

Starting tomorrow, you (and monsters all around the world) will be able to enjoy a mini horror film each and every night at 4:44PM (Pacific Time) at the Terror Titans blog until Halloween.

The Autumn chill will be felt here at Shades of Gray, as we will be offering a variety of posts to help you get in the mood for Halloween. You'll find spooky music videos, comics, reviews, and the annual visits from Vampirella, so be sure to check back frequently.

'The Ghastly Ones': Fun early reader spoofs

The Ghastly Ones & Other Fiendish Frolics (1995, Manic D Press)

Writing & Art: Richard Sala

Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Richard Sala spoofs children's picture books in an anthology collecting four horror-themed short items. (Three are narratives constructed using verse and drawings while the fourth one is a series of couplets paired with portraits of murderers and monsters.)

"The Ghastly Ones & Other Fiendish Frolics" was written and illustrated by Sala during a period when he reportedly had grown frustrated with working in comics. It stands a unique entry in his body of work, and shows off his playful side more strongly than his other efforts. It's also a quick read; each page of text has at most a couple of paragraphs, and they are generally followed by a full page illustration.

The book leads off with "The Ghastly Ones", in which a creepy fan of serial killers goes to interview an arrogant detective who hunts them and other monsters. The verses describe 20 serial killers, their preferred victims and sometimes their methods, as well as their fate. An illustration of the killers posing with victims, or otherwise showing their evil natures, is included with each. One of the killers is still on the loose, and he appears at the very end of the narrative to bring it to a grimly amusing, entirely fitting close.

The second included tale, "The Morbid Musings of Malcolm deMulch", is the briefest of them, consisting of just six pages. It feels very much like a dark Dr. Seuss book, or something from Edward Gorey, with each page containing a drawing and a rhyme with Malcolm wondering about how and when he will die. It was originally intended for an anthology where it was to have been a single page comic story. Sala reworked it slightly and turned each panel into an individual page for the inclusion in this volume. (You can see the original version of the story at the bottom of this post. Click on it to enlarge it.) 

Next up is "The Skulkers". Like "The Ghastly Ones", it's a catalogue of murderers and monsters, but it has no narrative framework. Instead, readers are treated to literal portraits of 10 killers, with each subject  revealing a little bit about him- or herself in a couplet. Like the other sections in the book, it's equal parts cute, amusing, and disturbing. On the downside, Richard Sala engages in his love of drawing grotesquely misshapen noses; this is admittedly a personal issue, but it's my least favorite aspect of his art and he provides a concentrated dose of it here.

Closing out the book is "Beware! Beware!", another perfect spoof of an early reader book. In it, an elderly woman is warning a child about all the homicidal maniacs that are lurking outside the safety of their home. The illustrations and the rhythm and repetitiveness of the writing captures the feel of an early reader book designed to both amuse and educate... but it's bizarre and twisted throughout. It also has an excellent, evil-chuckle-worthy ending, so it makes it the perfect capper for this unusual book.

If you enjoy darkly humorous works and fine illustrations, I think you'll get a kick out of "The Ghastly Ones"... and I think you'll be even more amused if you've ever read books aloud to little kids while they followed along.

The Original Morbid Musings of Malcolm deMulch

Wonder Woman Wednesday

By J. George

As we continue waiting to see if "Wonder Woman '84" will make into theatres in August, we're going to be spending time with everyone's favorite Amazon every other Wednesday. This time, some of her Friends and Frienemies have come to hang out, too, and pose for portraits.

By Sebastien Dardenne

By Richard Sala

By Dick Giordano

By Kevn Maguire

By Frank Cho

'Peculia' is a swift and entertaining read

Peculia (2002, Fantagraphics)
Story and Art: Richard Sala
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Peculia wanders the countryside and neighborhood around her mansion and encounters various supernatural menaces, usually after disregarding advice from her faithful servant, Ambrose.

Peculia was one of Richard Sala's signature characters. She's a young woman who usually appears wearing a "little black dress", When she's not being menaced by odd creatures or villains who seem to have stepped out of B-movies or gothic romances, she's being stalked by the mysterious Obscurus and his agent Justine. Exactly what the relationship is between Obscurus, Justine, and Peculia is never revealed, but there are hints that Obscuras and Peculia were once romantically involved, or at least very good friends, and that Justine is jealous of them. What caused the rift between Peculia and Obscurus, why he is isolated in a secret base and always masked is also never revealed--although he seems to be suffering under some of magical curse--but his spying on Peculia through Justine just as often puts Peculia in danger as saves her from it.

"Peculia" collects nine short tales that originally appeared in "Evil Eye" 1-9 during 1998 and 1999. Each is a self-contained story, and each feature a mix of horror and humor for which Sala's whimsical, simple art style is the perfect vehicle. The tone of stories reminds me of Poverty Row 1940s horror flicks with more than a little 1960s/70s Eurotrash horror movies and sex comedies throw in--and I'm invoking those in a positive way, as I find many of those movies quite fun and these comics capture the best of what they have to offer.

Over the course of the nine tales, Peculia's strolls brings her into encounters with weird gremlins who are attracted to music; three witches with a strange secret; a crazed widower who would cause many Edgar Allen Poe characters to reexamine their choices in life; a strange mystic sorority and the chutuloid monster that ends up dooming them, a homicidal girl battling a cult devoted to Bast; hoards of zombies and maniacs; a psychopathic psychiatrist conducting unholy research on unwilling subjects; Death himself; and more weird townsfolk than you think could be packed into one book. And all of this while Justine and Obscurus lurk nearby to either cause or solve problems.

While the first five tales in the book get increasingly good, and the remaining four hold steady-qualitywise, I still have to quibble with the fact that we never get an explanation for why Obscurus is seemingly cursed with total anonymity toward anyone but Justine; it's the one thing that I was disappointed over when I got to the end of the book. On the other hand, I was so delighted by the tiny continuity detail that tied the first story and eighth story in the book together that I am almost able to overlook my annoyance and so keep my rating of Seven of Ten Stars for the book.

"Peculia" is a swift and enjoyable read. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys crisp, straightforward cartooning and horror stories told with a sense of humor. (As a final note, I should mention that the book also contains a never-before-published color story. It's a fun, wordless little tale, but we don't talk about things that aren't in black-and-white in these parts!)

Post-Script From the Department of Odd Observations

In her first appearance--originally in "Evil Eye" #1 (1998)--she wore a pair of black shoes, perfectly matched to her little black dress.

There was a time where Peculia wore shoes...

She left those shoes behind halfway through her second appearance appearance--in "Evil Eye" #2 (1998)--and she went barefoot everywhere from then on (which was 10 more issues of "Evil Eye", various pin-ups., and "Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires" (2005).

... but, once she left them behind, she never wore shoes again.

What does this mean? We have no idea, but we further observed that most female characters that appeared in the Peculia stories were barefoot. (The four panels above were excerpted from the first and second stories in the "Peculia" (2002) collection.)

Doing a little recycling...

The art is by Richard Sala. The re-purposing of said art was done by yours truly, Steve Miller.

(The drawing originally appeared in "Peculia" (2002, Fantagrahics). Review coming soon!)

Happy International Goth Day!

Is that right? Is it appropriate to say happy International Goth Day (or World Goth Day)? Hm... wow. I don't know! If everyone wasn't under house-arrest and hiding from the Coronavirus, I could have just walked outside my front door and asked one of the goths who are usually hanging out around the corner.

Oh well; one must stay home in order to save lives. I hope any Goths out there takes my well-wishes and this small gallery of photos and art celebrating their ways in the friendly spirit is was intended!