I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer #2 // Review
Rennie is relaxed. He skin has stopped itching. It could have been the result of the right kind of rest. It could have been the pocky sticks. It could have been the fashion magazines. Or maybe it was the bathtub full of human blood that she had bathed in. Whatever it is, she’s feeling great. That feeling isn’t going to last very long in I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer #2. Writer Doug Wagner continues a deeply enjoyable horror drama with artist Daniel Hillyard and colorist Michelle Madsen. Everything feels perfectly in line as tensions increase around the edges of a deeply engaging narrative.
Rennie’s teacher compliments her on the jacket that she’s designed. A security guard’s badge. Bullets repurposed as buttons. She’s clearly making a statement on utilitarianism, authority and current affairs. A friend of hers notices that the scratches on her skin aren’t there anymore. And she’s been invited to go out to the movies with a few of her friends. When she arrived at fashion school, she was an outcast. By mid-terms, everyone seems to like her. Then her friend mentions something about being nearly attacked on the job while delivering food. Rennie’s going to have some difficulty letting this pass. She’s going to have to do something about it.
It’s really, really difficult to make a serial killer look convincingly appealing without glorifying thw murders or making the victims out to be bigger monsters than the killer. Wagner does a rather brilliant job of showing Rennie’s own vulnerability while simultaneously giving the monstrous aspect of her personality the kind of space it needs on the page. Rennie IS a monster, but she’s not charismatic evil for the sake of evil and she’s not some totally messed-up irretrievably chaotic psychotic. It makes her that rare breed of relatable serial killer that so rarely comes-up i horror fiction.
Hillyard’s clean-line approach serves as a very casual witness. There’s some really, really horrifying sstuff going on in the margins of the panel, but it’s not the central focus of the drama because it’s not the central focus of Rennie’s life. She’s only doing what she needs to do in order to feel fine, but there’s clear evidence that hse doesn’t like doing what she has to do. It’s a subtle distinction that is drawn quite cleverly into Rennie’s beauty as she tries to navigate the tricky world of college and early adulthood. Madesn’s colors find depth and light in the world of a tiny, little fashion school in Manhattan.
Rennie is fun to hang out with for a few pages a month...partially because it’s clear that it’s all going to fall apart for her. The very nature of a college-based serial killer serial suggests that there is going to be a very clear end to everything that can’t help but turn out bad for Rennie, but...she seems like a nice enough person that as a reader, you really want to be there for her when it all finally falls apart for her at the end of the last issue.
