Delphine

A mysterious traveler gets off the train in a small village surrounded by a thick sinister forest. He is searching for Delphine, who vanished with only a scrawled-out address on a scrap of paper as a trace. In his newest chiller, Richard Sala takes the tale of Snow White and standsit on its head, retelling it from Prince Charming's perspective (the unnamed traveler) in a contemporary setting. This twisted tale includes all the elements of terror from the original fairy tale, with none of the insipid saccharine coating of the Disney animated adaptation: Yes, there will be blood. Originally serialized as part of the acclaimed international "Ignatz" series, Delphine is executed in a rich and ominous duotone that shows off Sala's virtuosity just as much as last year's full-color post-apocalyptic horror fantasy The Hidden did - punctuated with stunning full-color chapter breaks.

From Booklist

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

Paste

"This is a horrific, seductive rendition of Snow White for sadists, with an ending as unflinchingly cold as the frigid landscapes Sala renders."

About the Author

Richard Sala (1954–2020) grew up in Chicago. He had an MFA from Mills College, created over a dozen graphic novels, collaborated with Lemony Snicket, and illustrated a Jack Kerouac script. He spent most of his adult life in Berkeley, CA.

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