[.ca] The Ghastly Ones & Other Fiendish Frolics (ISBN 0916397408)

Poetic Injustice:
Out of all of Sala's works I have read so far, this is the most clearly inspired by Edward Gorey. Although Sala's art has a style all its own, this book copies the usual Gorey format with a series of illustrations (one on each double-page spread) accompanied by rhyming text telling short, humourous nasty stories (the same sort of tongue-in-cheek horror fun for all ages of a Vincent Price movie). I personally prefer Sala's short stories aimed at an older audience in traditional comic book format, but this book is still a howl. In this collection are four stories: "The Ghastly Ones" is about a bragging master detective detailing the modus operandi of a rogues gallery of fiends he has locked to the lascivious delight of a boy obsessed with crime. "The Morbid Musings of Malcolm de Mulch" is about a young man obsessively contemplating the many ways he might unfortunately meet an untimely demise. "The Skulkers" is a series of portraits of various fiends not unlike the first story, but the mini-poems are each told from the fiends' own points of view. Lastly "Beware, Beware" is about an old woman warning her young grandson that they best keep themsleves locked indoors because of all the dangers that face them in the city at night. All but "The Skulkers" (which isn't really a story) has a twisted twist ending. My one complaint is that it takes only minutes to read through the whole book, but it is still one that will be treasured by fans of Sala or dark humour, and I'm sure most young readers would get perverse delight from it as well. This is the type of fun book that encouraged me to read books when I was young because it is so "cool".