The Hidden
“Post-apocalyptic stories tend to be grim, butThe Hiddenis very dark indeed.... The book feels like a modern-day gothic horror. The survivors are metaphors for humanity, with a heroic few battling an onslaught of monsters, human or otherwise.... Sala’s illustration is compelling... 4 stars [out of 5]” (Grovel)“In this deliciously gothic graphic novel, …[w]hat unfolds is a Frankenstein-style nightmare told through scrawled speech bubbles, where reality, memories and dream states combine. The mental and physical landscapes are harsh and expressionist, and there's a twist in the tale…” (Eleanor Goodman - Bizarre)“’Gothic humor’ sounds like an oxymoron. That’s probably why so few comics creators — Charles Addams, Edward Gorey — have pulled it off. You can now add Richard Sala to that short list.” (Details)“Sala's unique brand of creepy quirk combines Edward Gorey, Chester Gould, and Charles Adams with his own unclassifiable magic.The Hidden, from Fantagraphics Books, is his most ambitious work -- an intimate apocalypse.” (Joseph McCabe - FEARnet)“It helps if you can illustrate your fever dreams as well as Sala can… [The Hidden] is beautiful to look at, and as usual, he gives us memorable grotesques and lovely girls in equal measure…. His best since he wrapped upEvil Eyea few years ago.” (Johnny Bacardi - Popdose)“Richard Sala's new full color graphic novel,The Hidden, fuses two classic horror tropes -- the story of Frankenstein's monster, and the ever-popular zombie apocalypse -- into a new form that is surprisingly free of cliché and enriched with a strange sensitivity...” (Casey Burchby - SF Weekly)“At a time when many alternative comics seem to be impulsively created page by page, Sala’s epic, tightly woven narrative is especially commendable.” (The Onion)“...[E]asily... one of my favorite horror comics and one of my contenders for my Best of 2011 list.... There is an excellent story of slow-building despair to be found in its pages, with gorgeous depictions and coloring and a horror story that shocks, surprises, and entertains.” (Rob McMonigal - Panel Patter)“The Hiddenfeels like a Poe short story, but Richard Sala actually reaches further back into gothic literature for information, filtering Frankenstein through a zombie apocalypse. Just like Poe, the fun here is all in the telling, and Sala’s campfire-ghost-story illustration is blunt enough to be cynically hilarious and cruelly gory, often at the same time. The allegory is the same as from Shelley’s original, but like the best gothic writing, the fun comes from putting the pieces — all the pieces — together at the end.” (David Berry - National Post)“The Hiddenisn’t just an entertaining riff on well-worn horror concepts. Taking his cues from Mary Shelley, Sala explores human vanity and arrogance as a way of showing how everything can go so wrong so fast.” (Noel Murray - The A.V. Club)“Clever, compelling and staggeringly engaging, this fabulous full-colour hardback is a wonderfully nostalgic escape hatch back to those days when unruly children scared themselves silly under the bedcovers at night…” (Win Wiacek - Now Read This!)“Undisputable fact: a new full-length Richard Sala book is a literary and comics event that makes you sit up and take notice…. This book is a magic trick, the kind you'll want to share with friends because you can hardly believe what you've witnessed when it's all done.” (R.J. Ryan - Comics Bulletin)“Richard Sala's latest graphic novel is an allegory weaving together post-apocalyptic chaos, class structure, ye olde Frankenstein analogies and a big-picture morality issue. We'll leave it to readers to determine ifThe Hiddenis spooky escapist fare or politically polarizing commentary, but we can't deny that the characters (including the mutants) are plausible and the illustration is positively inviting.” (Alternative Press)“Sala’s work is like a fusion of Hergé and Charles Addams, yielding a simple, cartoon-like style that makes his moments of gothic horror all the more disturbing. ...[The Hidden] is a beautifully pulpy and incredibly imaginative book that gives a fresh spin on a well-used set-up.” (Publishers Weekly)“...[W]hat Sala does well, he does very well indeed. There’s quite a lot to love inThe Hidden, with some scenes in particular that will stick with the reader for a long time.” (Greg McElhatton - Read About Comics)“The Hiddenis ridiculously good, silly fun... and Richard Sala’s absurd humour bleeds through the lot like red ink on a crisp white collar.... It is, to hammer it home with a bloody mallet, an absolute demented joy.” (Hayley Campbell - The Comics Journal)“Graphic novelist Richard Sala cures the zombie apocalypse malaise with a new book that takes the basic set-up of those tales and turns it into an artsy, comical, downright weird exercise in terror that brings together several slices of the horror genre... into something modern and surprising. …The Hidden[is] a modernist horror tale that acts like the zombies it evokes, cannibalizing the genres from which it sprang and spewing out something new from those entrails.” (John Seven - North Adams Transcript)“In this outing, [Sala] combines motifs of a postapocalyptic landscape, wanderers, some vampiric businessmen, and, ultimately, Dr. Frankenstein. The stew works perfectly... and it is only at story’s end that the opening pages become horrifyingly clear. Sala works with a full palette of beautiful, gemlike hues held in generous panels.” (Francisca Goldsmith - School Library Journal)“Sala’s new book,The Hidden, does not wholly depart from the campy fascination with the morbid that marks his previous work, but is even darker in tone, despite the vibrant watercolor work. The visual markers of Sala’s humor are present — the affected font, the twisted faces — but there is arguably something more serious and disturbing at play here.” (Jenna Brager - Los Angeles Review of Books)“This is Sala’s second book in colour, rich in red and orange, but it’s the first, I believe, to dispense with all hope and humour — apart from the man with the Marty Feldman eyes. He’s taken the Edward out of Gorey and the tongue from his cheek, replacing it there with shovels, hatchets and stakes!” (Stephen L. Holland, Page 45)