Poison Flowers and Pandemonium

Poison Flowers and Pandemonium by Richard Sala
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poison Flowers and Pandemonium contains four tales written and illustrated by Richard Sala.

My first exposure to Richard Sala was a pinup in Madman Adventures #1 about a thousand years ago. I didn't know what to this about his minimalist, somehow unsettling art then and I'm still not precisely sure I like it. Anyway, I picked this up sometime in the past year or so.

The first tale in the book, The House of the Blue Dwarf, features a psychic girl and a bunch of villains gathering in a house in order to take down former super hero and now homicidal killing machine The Bloody Cardinal. Weirdness ensues and a lot of people catch machetes to the brain courtesy of the Cardinal. Sala's minimalist, almost coloring book style gives the violence an unsettling feel.

The second tale, Monsters Illustrated, has a framing sequence of a girl in a bookstore but it's really a collection of one page pinup parodies/homages to '50s and '60s sci-fi and horror movies and tv shows.

The third tale, Cave Ggirls of the Lost World, features one page pinups of cave girls battling dinosaurs and monsters interspersed with text purported to be found in a bottle on a beach somewhere. Both Monsters Illustrated and Cave Girls make me think Sala had a bunch of pinups lying around and decided to wrap stories around them.

The final tale, Fantomella, is a revenge tale about a masked girl looking for vengeance. Killing ensues.

At the end of the book, I have to say I enjoyed it. It makes me want to read more Sala and also read more about him. I have no idea who his influences are but they certainly aren't the usual suspects.

Poison Flowers and Pandemonium is a bizarre collection of stories. I need more Richard Sala! Four out of five cave girls.

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