Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires

    (Fantagraphics, 2006)
™ and © Fantagraphics Books, Inc.

Richard Sala’s gothic horror comic Evil Eye has earned a devoted following over the years, many of which followers jumped on early. Later issues did little to welcome new readers, who were easily lost by the series’ lack of explanation as to what went before.

Thankfully, Sala fixes that with this graphic novel that’s also the 13th issue of his Evil Eye comic. This standalone story, which features Sala’s Evil Eye lead character Peculia and contains his usual style of spooky–not–scary horror, is much more enjoyable by virtue of its accessibility. This time, Peculia gets recruited at the last minute into a babysitter club, but, as it turns out, the club’s been duped into interacting with something far worse than temperamental children.

Sala’s brand of horror is different; it’s dark enough to thrill and chill but lightweight enough to enjoy and smile at. His art appropriately contains lots of black, but most of it is composed via strokes of thick lines, rather than solids, which provides an unusual texture matching his unusual storytelling. Sala’s fans will love this; newcomers won’t find it so bad, either.

—Jim Johnson
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