If you like your horror with a large dose of satire and a bathtub full of blood, look no further than Image Comics‘ I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer.
Written by Doug Wagner with art by Daniel Hillyard, the five-issue series is a spiritual successor to the team’s previous works, Vinyl, Plastic, and Plush. Those are all worth checking out too, but while that trio tends to go off the rails in unhinged ways, I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer stays on the rails — well, mostly.
In the book, Rennie Bethary is a young, fresh-faced student joining the incoming class of a prestigious fashion school, per the title of the book. Only thing is, Bethary has a unique approach to clothing: she makes it out of the flesh and bones of her victims. Because she’s a serial killer, which is, you’re not going to believe this, also in the title!
The concept is clear, and Hillyard’s approach to serial killing is blood-soaked but cartoony, making it potentially palatable for the more squeamish in the audience. For those who like their gore, don’t worry, there’s plenty of it, but the hyper-exaggerated kills often find Bethary somehow immediately skinning her victims down to the muscle, and then bathing in their blood.
But what makes this book excel is its approach to character and humor. Set in the dual cutthroat worlds of fashion and school, Bethary not only wrestles with who her next victim should be, but also how to get ahead in grades, the fashion industry, and how to relate to other human beings she doesn’t want to kill — something she’s never encountered before.
If you’ve noticed that Rennie Bethary is close in name to Elizabeth Báthory, aka the Bloody Countess, a real-life serial killer from the 1500s… Well, that’s definitely intentional. But I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer is no dry history lesson. It’s an extremely sopping wet romp through school tropes that is by turns laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly sweet. Imagine is Hannibal Lecter was a teenage girl, and was more interested in fashion that culinary pursuits, and you get the gist.
So this Halloween? Enroll in I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer. I give it an A+.
It’s spooky season, and you know what that means: time to curl up with a comic book or graphic novel that will scare your socks off. With that in mind, we’re posting a new horror book to check out every day of October, for our 31 Days Of Halloween Comics. Awoooo! Looking for the rest of our picks? Check them out on the Halloween tag.
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