By: Richard Sala Publisher: Fantagraphics Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Fantagraphics Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 232 Publication Date: November 09, 2005
Product Description: Gothic horror, madcap comedy, and an old-fashioned murder mystery coalesce perfectly in this chilling graphic novel.
For those who always thought the animated introductions to PBS's Mystery! series were cooler than the actual shows themselves, Richard Sala's marvelously dark and stormy novel-length thrillers are just the ticket.
In Mad Night, his follow-up to The Chuckling Whatsit, Sala follows ace detective Judy Drood and her reluctant companion Kasper Keene as they try to unravel a string of mysterious occurrences and heinous murders in the usually tranquil Lone Mountain College. What is the sinister secret of Professor Massimo Ibex? How is the (literal) puppet mistress Aunt Azalea and her bevy of beauteous pirate girls involved? Where does the lithping, er, lisping, corrupt cop Pinch fit in? And what exactly is the significance of the Glass Scorpion?
Sala's superbly elegant, shadowy draftsmanship and wittily spooky storytelling make Mad Night a wonderful romp for fans of gothic horror-part Dario Argento (stabbings! eye-gougings! decapitations!), part Edward Gorey (eerie creatures of the night! sinister alleyways!), but all fun from the first page to the last.
Sala Krimi The previous reviewer said that Kasper Keene is the main charcter....ummmm did we read the same Richard Sala book here! Judy Drood ,one of Richard Sala's best creations, is the main character here. She's a incredible homage to Bonita Granvilles's Nancy Drew from the Thirties, but with a vicious streak a mile wide. Which is a pretty good thing since she's stuck in a situation made from the plots of a thousand Edgar Wallace krimi films! Suffice it to say that Mad Night is a dark ride on extreme drugs full of evil mysterious masked maniacs, mad scientists, and a thousand other pulp conventions that mesh into a single glorious whole. Buy this and you won't be sorry!
Mad about Richard Sala Fans of Sala's work will not be disappointed. Although the ending isn't quite as rewarding or original as that of "The Chuckling Whatsit", the dialogue has gotten stronger and the characters have more depth than in Sala's earlier works. The sexual themes are also more prominent, but, as with the violence (which is a bit gorier this time around), the elegant and highly stylized artwork softens the effect and makes it less offensive for those who are likely to be offended by such things.
Sala has the unique abillity to introduce new characters and mysteries midway through the plot and leave everything unexplained until the very end, all without losing the reader. Here we have a crew of girl "pirates" in thrall to a hand puppet, war criminals, mad scientists, a hooded torturer, owls, conjoined twins, a hard-boiled and slightly insane girl detective, some kind of cult and probably a few other things I've forgotten, and yet somehow the story never seems cluttered.
Unfortunately there are also flaws. As mentioned above, the ending falls apart a bit. The action can be hard to follow due to Sala's tendency to cut to a different scene abruptly and without warning. The main character, Kasper, is annoying in his obtuse refusal to try to understand what's going on even when it becomes a matter of life and death. The main villains are not as compelling as they could be. Still, it's a miracle so many plot threads were resolved as well as they were.
Those who haven't read Sala's work before should start with "The Chuckling Whatsit". For others this book will satisfy almost as much.
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