Fear-filled Phantasms by Richard Sala

Then there's that time Peculia encountered an especially handsy monster...

The Fear-filled Phantasms of Richard Sala

 It's one of the many Perils of Peculia: The Night Visitor!

A version of this image was used as a cover for an issue of The Evil Eye, a 12-issue anthology series published by Fantagraphics during the late 1990s. Most of the Peculia stories from the series were reprinted in Peculia and Peculia and the Groom Grove Vampires, with numerous revisions by Sala, 

Click here read reviews of those books, as well as see more Perils of Peculia at the Shades of Gray blog.

On the second and fourth Fridays of the month, for all of 2022, we're going to bring you one of the late Richard Sala's spooktacular ink-and-watercolor drawings. Some will feature his signature character Peculia, some will be inspired by classic horror films or horror tropes, some will just be strange... but we hope you'll enjoy them as much as we do.

Peculia's Fear-filled Phantasms

 Is it the end of the road for Peculia and her frienemy, the mysterious Justine? Or is the master vampire just whisking them away to the annual Shades of Gray Halloween Party?

Peculia's Fear-filled Phantasms

 When slumber parties go bad...

Peculia's Fear-filled Phantasms

Then there's that time when Peculia got in too deep...

Peculia's Fear-filled Phantasms

 Then there's that time Peculia discovered that guys lie on their dating site profiles, starting with the fake pictures.

Peculia's Fear-filled Phantasms

Last year, we celebrated the artwork of the late Richard Sala, a comic book creator and artist whose work embodied the fun and mystery of Halloween more-so than perhaps any other artist in recent memory. We're continuing that celebration this year with a different water color paiting from Sala of one of signature characters--Peculia--squaring off against menaces and monsters!

First up, we present "Peculia vs. the Pumpkin King"!

Saturday Scream Queen: Peculia

Peculia made her first appearance in "Evil Eye" #1 (Fantagraphics 1998), a quarterly anthology title featuring stories written and drawn by Richard Sala. Peculia went onto become one of Sala's signature characters, as well as a favorite of her creator and his fans alike.

Most of Peculia's adventures start with her just going about her day... and end up with her fighting for her life against cultists, monsters, or bodice-ripping villains who have learned some tricks from mad scientists and mad slashers.

Peculia in a world where the horror and thriller movies of the 1920s through the 1950s could all easily have taken place, and where no one thought twice about encountering the supernatural or the by-products of mad science.

Sala never revealed much about Peculia's background. All we ever learn is that she's an orphan who lives alone in a large mansion located on the outskirts of a town. Here, she is looked after and assisted by a short manservant named Ambrose. Meanwhile, a bandage-swathed mystic known as Obscuras watches her from afar--although he and his minions cause almost as much trouble for Peculia as they rescue her from. 

In 2002, nine of Peculia's adventures were collected in "Peculia" (review and some excerpts here, including the history of our heroine's lost shoes). After the cancellation of "Evil Eye" in 2004, Sala revised and expanded the Peculia story from #11 into the graphic novel "Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires" (review here) in 2006.

Sala wrote in 2010 that he had several unpublished Peculia stories and "hundreds" of sketches and drawings involving her, and that he hoped to some day to a book collecting them. Sadly, Richard Sala passed away on May 7, 2020, and the Peculia collection he thought of never came to pass.

While many of Sala's Peculia sketches and drawings have made their way onto the internet over the years, there are at least two Peculia stories that have never been reprinted outside issues of "Evil Eye", and at this point we'll probably never get to see them, nor the treasure trove of unpublished material from his sketch- and notebooks.

But... Peculia lives on, wandering the countryside of the imagination and finding trouble, whether she is looking for it or not.

Finally, if someone has the good taste to make a Peculia movie, "Trouble is a Friend of Mine" MUST be the theme song for it. It's also great music to listen to get you in the mood to read any of Peculia's adventures... and the video has the added benefit that it feels like it could have been animated by Richard Sala!

Fear-filled Phantasms by Richard Sala

This week's exhibit of Richard Sala art is titled The Perils of Peculia. It features portraits of Sala's reluctant heroine, Peculia, who keeps finding herself in the middle of fights with mad scientists and monsters when all she ever wants is quiet walks and uneventful trips to the park or the store. 

Peculia appeared in a series of short stories in The Evil Eye anthology title from Fantagraphics during the 1990s. Her adventures have been collected in "Peculia" and "Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires". Click on the links to read reviews of those books at our sister blog, Shades of Gray.