I wanted to mark the recent sad news that artist Richard Sala had died. He was a unique comics talent who had ploughed his own furrow in a series of regular and entertaining graphic novels which I greatly enjoyed. His imagination was fuelled by many things, resulting in a unique combination of macabre characters and settings with a strong horror vibe, not explicit, but suggestive and playfully grotesque, reminding you of some old forgotten b-movie.
I think it was his Delphine books where I first encountered his distinctive work. The story was serialised in four large oversize volumes by Fantagraphics just over 10 years ago and I had fun tracking them down as quickly as I could and devouring the story. My curiosity into the artist and his work luckily led me to his website from where he was selling off some of his art and I was privileged to purchase a couple of sequences from the Delphine books I'd been reading and have a few short communications with the man himself.
My interest piqued, I bought as many of his graphic novels as I could find - using the finding of his work in comic shops (alongside other distinct voices of Jason, Rick Geary & Tim Truman), as a kind of 'quirky quality benchmark' whether it would be worth me delving further into that store's stock in the, sadly too often superhero dominated comic marketplace. I was therefore able to build up a decent but still incomplete collection of his work, often with recurring characters and themes, some more succesful reads than others but all a delight to experience and enjoy his artistic talent.
It seems that my appreciation was not alone as there have been several moving tributes made to the man which, even if you are familar with his work are worth a read, even moreso, if you are not, in which case I encourage you to explore the fine legacy he has left.
https://www.comicsbeat.com/rip-richard-sala/
http://www.tcj.com/richard-sala-1955-2020/
http://www.tcj.com/richard/
lhttps://spyvibe.blogspot.com/2020/05/remembering-richard-sala.html
No comments:
Post a Comment