By Joëlle Jones, Jamie S. Rich & Laura Allred (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-757-7
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Wildly Witty and Nostalgically Nasty… 8/10
1962 was a strangely portentous and memorable year.
We all nearly died in a Cuban mushroom cloud; the United States Supreme Court ruled mandatory prayers in public schools were unconstitutional; The Beatles released their debut single Love Me Do; Vivian Vance became the first person to portray a divorcée on an American TV series and paragon of femininity/First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy took television viewers on a tour of the White House.
Way back then in a cosy era of prim, proper and perfectly contented wives and mothers, Josie Schuller is a bit of an oddball – although you’d never know it to look at her…
In a consumer culture when men wear hats and smoke at work, proper ladies are pliable, obedient “homemakers†and appearance and conformity are paramount but Josie is shamefully keeping a secret from hubby Gene, their two adorable kids and even her nosy live-in mother-in-law. The busybody biddy does have her suspicions though: a strange man is always hanging around, trying to talk to Josie when no one’s looking, and Mother Schuller suspects the worst.
Her nasty mind might be relieved to know that her daughter by marriage is not cheating on her beloved son, merely indulging in a little freelance work on the side. The deceitful little minx is actually an assassin and really, really good at her job…
Unfortunately Josie wants to leave the business, but her increasingly obnoxious handler Peck and his boss Stenholm keep piling on the pressure to take on more and more contracts, with no regard to the happy home-life she wants to preserve. Eventually the devotedly domestic death-dealer decides that her dreams mean nothing to her employers and, after she’s despatched to dispatch another lady trying to quit the lethal game, Josie realises that if she wants to retire she’s going to have to remove the organisation that owns her first…
Devised and illustrated by Joëlle Jones, scripted by Jamie S. Rich and coloured by Laura Allred, with an Introduction from crime-writer Chelsea Cain, this wickedly witty satirical blow for femininity and feminism collects issues #1-5 of Lady Killer from January-May 2015, mischievously mauling the virginal, compliant stereotypes handed down to us from the heydays of Doris Day, Leave it to Beaver and The Lucy Show – by way of Mad Men and Red – and resulting in a fast-paced high-octane period thriller which is a joy to behold.
Bedded in with a wealth of additional material Рroughs, working studies, faux contemporary ads, cover-&-variants gallery and commentary from the creators in a stylish Sketchbook section Рthis is a taut and tantalising thriller, packed with plenty of action and suspense delivered with electric ̩lan and perilous panache, to delight every reader who loves their comedy black and their body-counts high.
Lady Killer™ © 2015 by Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich. All rights reserved.