Delphine
Comicdom’s master of the musty macabre retells (very loosely) the Snow White fairy tale from the point of view of a modern Prince Charming. With only an address on a scrap of paper, an unnamed young man searches for his college sweetie through a village full of crazies, dark woods seething with menace, and haunted mansions hung with wicked mirrors on the walls. Sala’s high-class horror sensibility is equal parts sinister and gleeful: a wild cackle of frights steeped in the grand gothic tradition of Edward Gorey. The tale, originally serialized in Fantagraphics’ Ignatz Series, is drawn in shades of doomful brown and accented by a few striking, full-color chapter breaks. Sala’s quavery lines dish out plenty of unsettling images, and he ratchets up the eeriness with stylized, hand-drawn lettering. Though he sacrifices some narrative sense in favor of creepy atmospherics and downright baffling transitions, Sala does a fine job of keeping everything just slightly out of balance and off-kilter. Just take a guess at how happily this ever after turns out to be. --Ian Chipman