Clown Fatale #1
For centuries, clowns have been an enchanting/terrorizing presence at carnivals, kid’s birthday parties and dreams nationwide. While clowns may be well engrained into our collective conscience, I can safely bet that many of you have never seen a clown quite like those in Dark Horses new mini-series entitled Clown Fatale. A comic that takes four tough as nail clown-babes and sets them loose on Middle America.
Clown Fatale tells the tale of Chloe Tucker and her three friends who have been working as clowns trying to escape their own tumultuous pasts for various reasons. After being insulted, as clowns so often are, the girls lose their cool, attack some rubes and come to realize just how disposable they really are. Luckily for Chloe and her mates, an appearance from a seedy stranger could result in flashy new career change; from a group of clowns to hired assassins. Looks like the kids won’t be the only ones having fun at the circus.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this title. Victor Gischler takes what could have been a throw-away grind house style series and adds enough depth and heart to create something far more poignant. The girls are not sex-pots on display, though they do show a fair amount of skin, but are fully fleshed out characters with separate motivations, strengths and weaknesses. I particularly love the team dynamic on display here, lovingly taking a page from the more successful teams in pop culture, complete with their very own wild-card!
The art is well detailed and perfectly captures the humour in the story. Taking place in a circus allows for some colourful imagery and the teams does not disappoint on this end. However, most of the scenes take place under a red tent, which gives the book a claustrophobic feel. This is all well and good for symbolism, but creates for a rather bland feeling during the middle of the book.
Clown Fatale #1 is the definition of sleeper-hit. This is a wonderful book, flying low under the radar and will no doubt be missed by many. Hopefully you managed to read this review before your trip to the comic shoppe. If not, get back out there and pick this one up.
Clown Fatale #1
Script: Victor Gischler
Pencils: Maurizio Rosenzweig
Digital Inks & Colours: Moreno Dinisio
Letters: Nate Piekos of Blambot
Cover: Tim Seely
Purchase: https://digital.darkhorse.com/
Clown Fatale tells the tale of Chloe Tucker and her three friends who have been working as clowns trying to escape their own tumultuous pasts for various reasons. After being insulted, as clowns so often are, the girls lose their cool, attack some rubes and come to realize just how disposable they really are. Luckily for Chloe and her mates, an appearance from a seedy stranger could result in flashy new career change; from a group of clowns to hired assassins. Looks like the kids won’t be the only ones having fun at the circus.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this title. Victor Gischler takes what could have been a throw-away grind house style series and adds enough depth and heart to create something far more poignant. The girls are not sex-pots on display, though they do show a fair amount of skin, but are fully fleshed out characters with separate motivations, strengths and weaknesses. I particularly love the team dynamic on display here, lovingly taking a page from the more successful teams in pop culture, complete with their very own wild-card!
The art is well detailed and perfectly captures the humour in the story. Taking place in a circus allows for some colourful imagery and the teams does not disappoint on this end. However, most of the scenes take place under a red tent, which gives the book a claustrophobic feel. This is all well and good for symbolism, but creates for a rather bland feeling during the middle of the book.
Clown Fatale #1 is the definition of sleeper-hit. This is a wonderful book, flying low under the radar and will no doubt be missed by many. Hopefully you managed to read this review before your trip to the comic shoppe. If not, get back out there and pick this one up.
Clown Fatale #1
Script: Victor Gischler
Pencils: Maurizio Rosenzweig
Digital Inks & Colours: Moreno Dinisio
Letters: Nate Piekos of Blambot
Cover: Tim Seely
Purchase: https://digital.darkhorse.com/
A Look Inside
