Poison Flowers and Pandemonium

Just a couple of months before his tragic passing in March 2020, cartooning master of the macabre Richard Sala completed his final book — or, actually, his final four books. Poison Flowers and Pandemonium collects all four of these original graphic novellas in one beautiful hardcover worthy of Sala’s legacy.

First up in Poison Flowers is “House of the Blue Dwarf,” a 125-page thriller featuring master criminal the Bloody Cardinal, who leaves a wake of mayhem and madness everywhere he goes. “Monsters Illustrated” is a fun, 64-page monster movie riff that showcases Sala’s visual imagination. A young woman in a dusty bookstore reads a strange bestiary — the “book within a book” showcases a series of Sala’s gorgeous watercolor and ink drawings. But when she gets to the end, she finds the bookseller drives a hard bargain. “Cave Girls Of The Lost World” is a campy, 60-page romp about a team of young women whose plane crashes in a land forgotten by time and rife with dinosaurs, carnivorous plants, and apemen — but these intelligent, brave, and resourceful women are ready to rumble! Rounding out the book is “The Amazing Adventures of Fantomina Fantomella,” a 45-page graphic novella of violence and non-stop action. Priest and his mob thought Fantomina was dead. So how is it that she's come back with a vengeance? Poison Flowers & Pandemonium is a perfect showcase of Sala's gorgeous watercolor artwork and his love of B-movie horror, silent film-era archetypes, and femmes fatale.