Synopses & Reviews
Eight desperate people are stranded at a snowbound diner. Their phones can only pick brief and perplexing bits of conversation. The radio is filled with static — although occasional, broken-up bits of news are heard — reports of some sort of global catastrophe...
A ninth person arrives, hiking to the diner from his stranded car, where he had been listening to his car radio. He informs the others that, yes, from what he was been able to make out, something alarming seems to have happened, a catastrophe on a global scale… Oh, and one more bit of local news he happened to pick up, he says: The previous night an inmate escaped from a nearby hospital for the criminally insane, after killing his doctor and several bystanders. The police warn that he is very, very dangerous...
What perhaps sounds like the description of an old weird tale or an episode of The Twilight Zone is actually just the beginning of the new suspenseful, brain-twisting graphic novel from the author of Delphine, The Chuckling Whatsit, and Cat Burglar Black. In The Hidden, as the isolated characters become increasingly unraveled, one character tells of a dream he recently had. Then each of the others tells a dream, a personal anecdote or a story they’ve heard, ranging from the bizarre to the absurd to the truly horrific. Each will be presented as its own chapter.
Then there are the games — a selection of (fully illustrated) card games and board games found in the diner. Are these merely children’s games — or something more sinister?
Review
"'Gothic humor' sounds like an oxymoron. That's probably why so few comics creators -- Charles Addams, Edward Gorey -- have pulled it off. You can now add Richard Sala to that short list." Details
Review
"At a time when many alternative comics seem to be impulsively created page by page, Sala's epic, tightly woven narrative is especially commendable." The Comics Journal
Review
"Richard Sala's new full color graphic novel, , fuses two classic horror tropes -- the story of Frankenstein's monster, and the ever-popular zombie apocalypse -- into a new form that is surprisingly free of cliché and enriched with a strange sensitivity..." Joseph McCabe FEARnet - Best of 2011: Books and Comics
Review
"Undisputable fact: a new full-length Richard Sala book is a literary and comics event that makes you sit up and take notice.... This book is a magic trick, the kind you'll want to share with friends because you can hardly believe what you've witnessed when it's all done." Johnny Bacardi Popdose
Review
"Sala's work is like a fusion of Hergé and Charles Addams, yielding a simple, cartoon-like style that makes his moments of gothic horror all the more disturbing. ...[] is a beautifully pulpy and incredibly imaginative book that gives a fresh spin on a well-used set-up." Noel Murray The A.V. Club
Review
"In this outing, [Sala] combines motifs of a postapocalyptic landscape, wanderers, some vampiric businessmen, and, ultimately, Dr. Frankenstein. The stew works perfectly... and it is only at story's end that the opening pages become horrifyingly clear. Sala works with a full palette of beautiful, gemlike hues held in generous panels." Hayley Campbell The Comics Journal
Review
"This is Sala's second book in colour, rich in red and orange, but it's the first, I believe, to dispense with all hope and humour -- apart from the man with the Marty Feldman eyes. He's taken the Edward out of Gorey and the tongue from his cheek, replacing it there with shovels, hatchets and stakes!" Greg McElhatton Read About Comics
Review
" isn't just an entertaining riff on well-worn horror concepts. Taking his cues from Mary Shelley, Sala explores human vanity and arrogance as a way of showing how everything can go so wrong so fast." David Berry National Post
Review
"Clever, compelling and staggeringly engaging, this fabulous full-colour hardback is a wonderfully nostalgic escape hatch back to those days when unruly children scared themselves silly under the bedcovers at night..." Rob McMonigal Panel Patter
Review
"Post-apocalyptic stories tend to be grim, but is very dark indeed.... The book feels like a modern-day gothic horror. The survivors are metaphors for humanity, with a heroic few battling an onslaught of monsters, human or otherwise.... Sala's illustration is compelling... 4 stars [out of 5]" I'm Reading Comeeks
Review
"In this deliciously gothic graphic novel, ...[w]hat unfolds is a Frankenstein-style nightmare told through scrawled speech bubbles, where reality, memories and dream states combine. The mental and physical landscapes are harsh and expressionist, and there's a twist in the tale..." Carol Borden The Cultural Gutter
Review
"Sala's unique brand of creepy quirk combines Edward Gorey, Chester Gould, and Charles Adams with his own unclassifiable magic. , from Fantagraphics Books, is his most ambitious work -- an intimate apocalypse." The Comics Journal
Review
"It helps if you can illustrate your fever dreams as well as Sala can... [] is beautiful to look at, and as usual, he gives us memorable grotesques and lovely girls in equal measure.... His best since he wrapped up a few years ago." Carol Borden The Cultural Gutter
Review
"...[E]asily... one of my favorite horror comics and one of my contenders for my Best of 2011 list.... There is an excellent story of slow-building despair to be found in its pages, with gorgeous depictions and coloring and a horror story that shocks, surprises, and entertains." Grovel
Review
" feels like a Poe short story, but Richard Sala actually reaches further back into gothic literature for information, filtering Frankenstein through a zombie apocalypse. Just like Poe, the fun here is all in the telling, and Sala's campfire-ghost-story illustration is blunt enough to be cynically hilarious and cruelly gory, often at the same time. The allegory is the same as from Shelley's original, but like the best gothic writing, the fun comes from putting the pieces -- all the pieces -- together at the end." The Onion
Review
"Richard Sala's latest graphic novel is an allegory weaving together post-apocalyptic chaos, class structure, ye olde Frankenstein analogies and a big-picture morality issue. We'll leave it to readers to determine if is spooky escapist fare or politically polarizing commentary, but we can't deny that the characters (including the mutants) are plausible and the illustration is positively inviting." Noel Murray The A.V. Club
Review
"...[W]hat Sala does well, he does very well indeed. There's quite a lot to love in , with some scenes in particular that will stick with the reader for a long time." Win Wiacek Now Read This!
Review
" is ridiculously good, silly fun... and Richard Sala's absurd humour bleeds through the lot like red ink on a crisp white collar.... It is, to hammer it home with a bloody mallet, an absolute demented joy." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Graphic novelist Richard Sala cures the zombie apocalypse malaise with a new book that takes the basic set-up of those tales and turns it into an artsy, comical, downright weird exercise in terror that brings together several slices of the horror genre... into something modern and surprising. ... [is] a modernist horror tale that acts like the zombies it evokes, cannibalizing the genres from which it sprang and spewing out something new from those entrails." Johnny Bacardi Popdose
Review
"Sala's new book, , does not wholly depart from the campy fascination with the morbid that marks his previous work, but is even darker in tone, despite the vibrant watercolor work. The visual markers of Sala's humor are present -- the affected font, the twisted faces -- but there is arguably something more serious and disturbing at play here." Francisca Goldsmith School Library Journal
Review
"...I have to pay homage to Richard Sala's incredible and overlooked book, ... Sala's kind of a pro himself, turning out at least a book a year (much like another visionary, Gilbert Hernandez), and this twist on Frankenstein reads, not unlike that gothic romance, as an allegory for artistic ambition gone wrong...." Dan Nadel
Review
"The world is ending in madness and blood, as a bearded man flees to the countryside. But what does he know about the end and why is it mostly nubile young women who are being killed? Another tale of mayhem, mystery and mad science from Richard Sala." Jenna Brager Los Angeles Review of Books
Review
"I can't recommend Sala's books enough, and is one of his best works to date. Be sure to pick up a copy if you're looking for something more than global plagues and cannibalistic zombies in your world-ending entertainment." John Seven North Adams Transcript
Review
"Imagine your unease if all the ghouls and ghosts of the Halloweens of your forgotten youth were suddenly made real, ... Oh, and don't bother running to the neighbor's because the monsters have stopped there first. That's what reading is like and that's ... what makes it...one of Sala's best works period." John Seven North Adams Transcript
Review
"...I should warn you: this book is dark and bleak even for Sala, and that's dark indeed. There are still hints of his mordant humor, and his precise lines and color washes are as ghoulishly appropriate as always, but out-Salas any of the prior Sala books... an unlikely and impressive thing." John Mueller ComicImpact
Review
"...[P]robably the best pure horror comic I read this year... Sala's expressionist art style might not be the most obvious choice for telling bloodcurdling horror stories, but its innocent cartoony quality somehow makes a perfect (and terrible) fit with the horrible, almost nihilistic story that Sala is telling." John Mueller ComicImpact
Review
"The art is gruesome and absolutely the best, ...[and] everything lends itself to the gothic and disturbing feel of the book.
Synopsis
Take a walk with the dazed survivors of a mysterious worldwide catastrophe. They are bound for a place, somewhere in the desert, where a terrible truth awaits them Richard Sala's books are "deliriously entertaining" Rue Morgue Magazine), "cinematic and cheerfully over-the-top" (The New York Times Book Review), containing "brilliantly atmospheric art, full of shadows and spikes." (Booklist) "To read a Richard Sala comic is an experience both jarring and fun. Good for a rainy day or a stormy night." Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
An original tale of terror from comics' master of suspense --his first color book from Fantagraphics.
Synopsis
’Gothic humor’ sounds like an oxymoron. That’s probably why so few comics creators — Charles Addams, Edward Gorey — have pulled it off. You can now add Richard Sala to that short list.At a time when many alternative comics seem to be impulsively created page by page, Sala’s epic, tightly woven narrative is especially commendable.
Synopsis
Is this the end of the world? How did it happen? Why did it happen? There is one man who knows... Take a walk with the dazed survivors of a mysterious worldwide catastrophe. They are bound for a place, somewhere in the desert, where a terrible truth awaits them. Richard Sala's books are "deliriously entertaining" (), "cinematic and cheerfully over-the-top" (), containing "brilliantly atmospheric art, full of shadows and spikes." () "To read a Richard Sala comic is an experience both jarring and fun. Good for a rainy day or a stormy night." -
About the Author
Richard Sala grew up in Chicago and now spends his time in Berkeley, CA. His graphic novels include Mad Night, Peculia, Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires, Maniac Killer Strikes Again!, The Ghastly Ones, The Chuckling Whatsit, Cat Burglar Black, Delphine, and The Hidden.