Who moonlights as a homemaker and mother in the daytime, and a knife-wielding assassin by night? You bet your ass it’s this lady here, Josie Schuller. Welcome to Lady Killer, a comic that is filled with carefully perfected smiles and gory bloodshed about a lady carrying on a double life in the 1960s.
Lady Killer is created by a talented group of people who do an amazing job of presenting Josie Schuller in all her bloody glory, and those people are Joelle Jones (writer/artist), Jamie S. Rich (writer), Laura Allred (colorist), and Crank! (letterer). I was excited because two words: Lady Killer. In this comic, the creators show you a side that people often forget—that women are capable of doing gruesome, dirty work like men, and they can do it much better.
YOU GOTTA READ LADY KILLER BECAUSE…
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Josie Schuller is not your average homemaker, she’s a trained assassin!
Josie Schuller is a wonder woman. She is very charming and crafty, loves her family, and can be cold-blooded and is exceptionally skilled at killing.
She’s not afraid of getting her outfit dirty—both as a homemaker and an assassin. By day, she’s cooking a delicious meal for her family and wrangling her rambunctious kids, and at night (figuratively, of course), she’s choking her mark with his own tie or plunging a knife into her mark’s chest. Like her male counterparts, she can kill, and she can do it better. (I have no doubt she knows 100+ ways to kill someone with the things around her.) It’s fascinating that she is able to separate her mindset in her two roles. Josie Schuller exceeds all expectations of women from her time, and it’s amazing to see her at work.
You wouldn’t know she’s a trained assassin just by looking at her.
- It’s really dark and gory.
Expect Lady Killer to bring all that dark comedy goodness. How else are you supposed to talk about murder? The tone is appropriate for a comic that contains a lot of grisly moments. Murder is never happiness and sunshine; it’s dark and messy, and Lady Killer does a great job of portraying it.
- The art and colors are vivid and crisp.
Every line and color are crisp; nothing seems out of place and it demands your attention, which probably has Josie’s stamp of approval. The art and the colors do a wonderful job of transporting you into the time period Lady Killer is set in. It feels feminine but grisly, which is perfect for the tone of the comic.
(Take a peek at whether or not the art in Lady Killer is for you.)
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There’s a lot of action scenes that are gruesome and awesome.
The fight scenes are big and messy. When Josie murders, it’s a production. She’s exceptionally skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and she can use any items she sees first, but her preference seems to be knives. For Josie, knives aren’t just for carving a meal; it can be used to kill your worst enemies, if you so choose, and she definitely chose to get down and dirty with it.
- You can’t wait until the men in this comic get what they deserve.
There are two particular men we meet in Lady Killer—Peck, a flirtatious yet vulgar man who works alongside Josie, and Stenholm, the head of the assassin agency who decides Josie has become a risk he no longer wants to take on. There will be fights, and you guys, they were so good. You can’t help but root for Josie to come up on top.
- It is inspired by vintage advertising from the 1940s-60s.
In the 1940s-60s, you would see advertisements trying to sell homemakers gas stoves or showing an exasperated homemarkers trying to clean a tough spot on the floor. In Lady Killer, you get cover art inspired by it, but they have a murder twist to them, and they are absolutely spectacular!
Only downside: There isn’t a lot of character development or plot. There’s so much about Josie Schuller and this world she lives in—specifically her assassin life—that we don’t know about, and it’s disappointing that we don’t get to see it at all. Hopefully, when Lady Killer comes back for a second arc, it will delve more into developing the characters and world.
Who will love this comic? “Man-haters.” (Just kidding.) Female assassin lovers. Anybody who loves or are okay with grisly murder. Also, anybody who wants to see how Joelle and Jamie S. Rich imagines a female killer, juggling two jobs, in the 1960s.
[note note_color=”#DDB349″ text_color=”#ffffff”]Are you convinced? Add to your TBR on Goodreads. Go buy Lady Killer from your local comic book store, or these online retailers: Amazon · Barnes & Noble · The Book Depository · Indigo · Comixology. Or borrow it from your library. [/note]
OMG, I LOVED this comic! It was you that first brought it to my attention during your graphic novel/comic round up of what you are looking forward to reading so I thank you. My favorite part had to be those advertisements, but really was there anything not to love about this one? No. I think not, but I do suppose we could have gotten some more character development, but like you said it may happen in the next installment.
It’s weird, because Lady Killer isn’t something I’d necessarily go for in general. But there’s something I can’t quite put my finger on that fascinates me about this one! I may have to check it out, especially because I think the art is pretty darn cool. Plus, that concept is kick-ass.
I love retro pulp fiction artwork.