SALA, Richard 1956-

PERSONAL: Born 1956, in Oakland, CA; married Terry Doyle. Education: Mills College, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES: Home—Berkeley, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Fantagraphics Books, 7563 Lake City Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115. E-mail—richard@richardsala.com.

CAREER: Comics artist, illustrator, painter, printmaker, and writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Evil Eye was nominated for the Harvey Award; other of Sala's works have been nominated for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award.

WRITINGS:

Hypnotic Tales, Kitchen Sink Press (Princeton, WI), 1992.

Thirteen o'Clock, Dark Horse Comics (Milwaukie, OR), 1992.

Black Cat Crossing, Kitchen Sink Press (Northampton, MA), 1993.

The Ghastly Ones, Manic D Press (San Francisco, CA), 1995.

The Chuckling Whatsit, Fantagraphics Books (Seattle, WA), 1997, new edition, 2003.

Peculia, Fantagraphics Books (Seattle, WA), 2002.

Maniac Killer Strikes Again!: Delirious, MysteriousStories, Fantagraphics Books (Seattle, WA), 2004.

Author of "Evil Eye" comic-book series, Fantagraphics Books (Seattle, WA), 1988. Author and illustrator of self-published magazine Night Drive. Sala's animated serial, Invisible Hands, aired on the animated anthology series Liquid Television, on Music Television (MTV). Contributor to books, including Graphic Classics: Edgar Allan Poe, Eureka Productions (Mount Horeb, WI), 2001, and Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night, edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Moully, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2003. Contributor to multimedia CD-ROM collections Freak Show and Bad Day on the Midway, by the music group the Residents. Contributor of comics and illustrations to periodicals, including Raw, Buzz, Twist, Escape, Drawn & Quarterly, Zero Zero, Playboy, Esquire, Newsweek, Boston Globe, Newsweek, Village Voice, Nickelodeon, and Rip off Comix.

SIDELIGHTS: Comics artist, writer, and illustrator Richard Sala's horror-tinged works have appeared in his own self-published comics, prominent comics anthologies, and on television. Sala's artwork, influenced by both noir and gothic fiction, is awash with images such as grinning skulls, skulking assassins, shadowed menaces, and the inexplicable come alive. But underneath the macabre surface is a rich undercurrent of humor, which invites comparisons between Sala's works and those of such masters of the subtle blending of humor and horror as Charles Addams, Edward Gorey, and Gahan Wilson.

Born in Oakland, California, Sala grew up in Chicago, where his father dealt in antiques. There, he "spent what might be considered an unhealthy amount of time at the Chicago museums, staring at the mummies, stuffed animals, and caveman dioramas," commented a biographer on the Fantagraphics Books Web site. He studied art at Mills College, in Oakland, and graduated with an M.F.A. in painting.

As an illustrator, Sala has contributed work to such diverse venues as newspapers and magazines, greeting cards, toy packaging, and corporate reports. He contributed artwork to a pair of multimedia CD-ROMs produced by the avant garde music group The Residents: Freak Show and Bad Day at the Midway. In 1992, Sala's Invisible Hands appeared as an animated serial on MTV's popular animation showcase, Liquid Television. His paintings and prints have been shown in exhibitions throughout the world.

Sala entered the comics field with Night Drive, which he published himself. After an appearance in the prominent alternative comics anthology Raw, edited by comics innovator Art Spiegelman, Sala's work "became a regular feature in many different types of magazines" in the alternative comics field, noted a biographer on the Lambiek.net Web site. Since 1988, Sala has concentrated on Evil Eye, his continuing series for Fantagraphics Books.

Sala's collections Hypnotic Tales and Black Cat Crossing gather together a number of his macabre stories and artwork previously published in magazines. The stories in Black Cat Crossing "exude a cartoonish aura of menace and amiable dementia," commented a reviewer in Publishers Weekly. In one story, a writer is offered a handsome sum to locate a kidnapped cat, but runs afoul of a sinister group of cat-masked cult members. In another, a detective searches for a woman whose disappearance appears to have something to do with a serial killer who targets victims at bus stops and smothers them with a pillow.

The Chuckling Whatsit, originally serialized in Zero Zero magazine from Fantagraphics Books, is a 200-page black-and-white graphic novel chronicling the search for the Chuckling Whatsit, a doll alleged to be made of the hair and skin of a serial killer's victims. The main character, Broom, appears to have information about the killer and perhaps the doll's whereabouts, and he joins the search in anticipation of reward while ignoring the danger. "Sala's style nicely mixes the humorous and the horrific" in a "mildly chilling" story, commented Library Journal reviewer Stephen Weiner.

Maniac Killer Strikes Again!: Delirious, Mysterious Stories presents a collection of out-of-print Sala work from the late 1980s and early 1990s, showcasing stories of secret societies, twisted monsters, mad scientists, and murder-minded cults. "If there were such a genre as 'gothic absurd,' these would be representative examples," remarked Jamie Watson in School Library Journal. Sala's "cartoony black-and-white art is distinctive, shadowy, and effective," stated Library Journal reviewer Steve Raiteri, adding that, in the stories, "everything is always deftly pulled together." Booklist critic Ray Olson wrote that "Sala's stories aren't boring, and their mystery-like, sleuthing plots conclude ironically rather than happily." The settings, situations, and characters in Sala's stories "could exist nowhere but in his pages," observed a Publishers Weekly reviewer, who concluded that reading Sala's work "is to walk into a baroque world of pen and ink, an experience both jarring and fun."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2004, Ray Olson, review of Maniac Killer Strikes Again!: Delirious, Mysterious Stories, p. 1278.

Entertainment Weekly, August 8, 2003, Nisha Gopalan, review of Little Lit: It was a Dark and Silly Night, p. 79.

Library Journal, February 1, 1998, Stephen Weiner, review of The Chuckling Whatsit, p. 84; May 1, 2004, Steve Raiteri, review of Maniac Killer Strikes Again!, p. 94.

Publishers Weekly, January 17, 1994, review of BlackCat Crossing, p. 428; March 29, 2004, review of Maniac Killer Strikes Again!, p. 41.

School Library Journal, August, 2004, Jamie Watson, review of Maniac Killer Strikes Again!, p. 149.

ONLINE

Fantagraphics Books Web site,http://www.fantagraphics.com/ (December 17, 2004), "A Look into Sala's Evil Eye: Richard Sala Discusses His First Ongoing Comic Book Series and More."

Lambiek.net,http://www.lambiek.net/ (November 18, 2004), biography of Richard Sala.

Richard Sala Home Page,http://www.richardsala.com (November 18, 2004).

Wisconsinite Web site,http://www.wisconsinite.net/ (April 13, 2004), John Nichols, interview with Sala.*