Richard Sala
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Richard Sala (1959 – May 2020) was an American cartoonist, illustrator, and comic book creator with a unique expressionistic style whose books often combined elements of mystery, horror and whimsy.
Biography
Richard Sala was born in Oakland, California in 1959. He spent his childhood in West Chicago, Illinois and his teenage years in Scottsdale, Arizona. In interviews, Sala has mentioned the influence of his childhood years on his work, particularly his visits to museums and antique shops. He has stated that his love of reading and his interest in comic books and horror films helped him deal with real life fears. He attended college as an art major, finally earning a Master of Fine Arts Degree in painting from Mills College. He then worked as a freelance illustrator, something he had begun doing while in college, and a cartoonist, publishing his first comic book, Night Drive, in 1984.
More of a reflection of his art school education than a typical comic book, Night Drive nevertheless ended up opening doors for Sala that would eventually lead to his rediscovering and embracing his childhood love of comics and monsters. The book came to the attention of several individuals who contacted Sala to request work. These included Art Spiegelman, Monte Beauchamp and Colossal Pictures and resulted in his appearances in two highly regarded comic anthologies - Spiegelman's RAW and Beauchamp's BLAB!. Colossal Pictures hired Sala to animate one of the stories from Night Drive called Invisible Hands. This was eventually expanded by Sala and director Denis Morella into a 12-minute story about a psychic detective, a hooded criminal, taxidermy, a costume party and a secret society of one-handed killers, all done in Sala's usual tongue-in-cheek style. Divided into 2-minute chapters so it could be shown as a serial, Invisible Hands, debuted on the first season of Liquid Television Show, which also featured the television debuts of Beavis and Butthead and Æon Flux.
Sala has continued to be a prolific illustrator and comic book artist. Two of his books, The Chuckling Whatsit and Mad Night began as serials. They are epic thrillers with labyrinthine plots and black humor. The Chuckling Whatsit first appeared in the anthology Zero Zero. Mad Night, which features the girl detective, Judy Drood, was initially serialized in Sala's 12-issue comic book series Evil Eye, published by Fantagraphics Books. Evil Eye also introduced Peculia, a mysterious black-haired waif whose fairy-tale inspired adventures include encounters with murderous children, necrophiles, cat-women and zombies. Evil Eye ran for twelve issues, between 1998 and 2001.
Sala has also worked on projects with Lemony Snicket, Steve Niles and The Residents and illustrated Doctor Sax and The Great World Snake, a script written in the 1960s by Jack Kerouac, which, like Sala's own work, makes use of pulp genre conventions such as vampires and shadowy avengers.
In 2014, Sala began writing and drawing a webcomic entitled Super-Enigmatix. Super-Enigmatix follows the investigation into a sinister super-criminal. In 2016, Sala began a second webcomic, The Bloody Cardinal, also about a mystery-shrouded super-criminal.
On May 9, 2020 the Fantagraphics Books Twitter account announced his death at age 61.
Bibliography
- The Bloody Cardinal (2017)
- Violenzia and Other Deadly Amusements (2015)
- In A Glass Grotesquely (2014)
- Violenzia (2013)
- Delphine (2012)
- The Hidden (2011)
- Cat Burglar Black (2009)
- Delphine (serialized as a four issue mini-series, 2006–2009)
- The Grave Robber's Daughter (2006)
- Dracula (2005) (Volume 3 of IDW's Little Book of Horror Series, in collaboration with Steve Niles)
- Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires (2005)
- Mad Night (2005)
- Maniac Killer Strikes Again! Delirious, Mysterious Stories (2003)
- Peculia (2002)
- The Chuckling Whatsit (1997)
- The Ghastly Ones and Other Fiendish Frolics (1995)
- Black Cat Crossing (1993)
- Hypnotic Tales (1992)
Linking in as of 2020
Fantômas, Fantagraphics Books, Peculiar, Liquid Television, Ignatz Award, Nickelodeon Magazine, List of Comics Journal interview subjects, Doctor Sax, BLAB!, List of American comics creators, First Second Books, Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Debbie Drechsler, Zero Zero (comics), Rip Off Comix, Night Drive, Kramers Ergot, The Narrative Corpse, List of Liquid Television episodes, Eric Reynolds (comics), No Straight Lines
