Richard Sala was a comic book creator with an exceptionally unique cartoon style. He’s perhaps most famous for Invisible Hands, a six-part animated short that aired on MTV as part of its Liquid Television broadcast. Taken too soon, this is the first posthumous release of a book that includes previously unreleased art by Sala.
This book, Night Drive, is a re-release of Sala’s first collection of short stories, which he self-published way back in 1984. It’s been long out of print, making this a great win for comic preservation. But more than that, the book is also a celebration of Sala, opened with a pretty extensive essay and in memoriam by his friend Dana Marie Andra.
Following it, there’s also an interview with Sala about the stories in this collection and his career, touching on Invisible Hands and his creative process. And then that’s where the book really begins, with a quote by Jorge Luis Borges, gesturing towards the surrealist stories that readers are in for.
Fantagraphics
There are about 15 stories that are one to four pages long, one of them being Invisible Hands, the inspiration for the MTV animation. There’s also a collection of ‘outtakes,’ which are pieces by Sala made around the same time as the original Night Drive that never made it to print.
All the pieces are in black and white, except for one or two full-page drawings that are in color. So if readers are looking for the colorful art of Sala’s more recent works, they won’t find that here. What they will find, however, is the bones of what Sala’s style will become later on in his career.
The contents of the stories themselves are pretty ambiguous. They appear more as rough impressions of stray thoughts, exploring the recesses of the human mind, a night drive into the subconscious. It is Lynchian in every sense of the word. It’s no coincidence that Sala’s original copy was released at the same time as the term was first coined. It adds to the mystical quality of the work.
But like any anthology collection, each piece can be hit or miss depending on the reader. Some may find it more potent and psychologically dense than others, and the imagery is not for everyone. Either way, this book can also be a good way to ignite readers’ interest in checking out Sala’s other books.
For lovers of Richard Sala’s work, Night Drive is a must-read. It provides context for his future, more well-known pieces. It is Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters to his Starry Night. But for those looking for a traditional graphic novel or even a short story collection, you might want to read up on what you’re getting into beforehand.
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