I Was a Fashion School Serial Killer #3 // Review
Rennie Bethary just killed a lot of people. So she’s feeling pretty good. She’s feeling strong. She’s feeling confident. That confidence is really beginning to show as she continues to make great progress in school. She didn’t get awarded the coveted Gersace Praddon 6-month internship, but that was because she failed to follow the parameters of the mid-term assignment. Her instructor tells her that the design is one of the best she’d ever seen from a student. Everything is going so well. What could possibly go wrong? Rennie finds out in I Was a Fashion School Serial Killer #3. Writer Doug Wagner ratchets-up the tension in another issue drawn to page and panel by artist Daniel Hillyard and colorist Michelle Madsen.
It’s really the friendship. That’s probably the big thing that Rennie loves the most about her newfound success. Though...being told by a professional that she was MEANT to be a fashion designer doesn’t hurt at all. What DOES hurt is a bit of a snag with her best friend Sofie’s boyfriend Bodhi. He had invited Rennie out to dinner with a few other people from class. She gets there to find him alone. He’d never invited anyone else. Only wants dinner with her. That’s when she finds the itch returning. That’s when she starts scratching at her skin again. That’s when things start getting worse...
Wagner’s greatest success just might be the fact that Rennie remains a totally relatable character. She might be a homicidal maniac who bathes in blood. She might be named after a 17th century Hungarian countess. She might be an exaggerated amplification of human neurosis, but she really just wants friendship and success like anyone else. The killing is just her way of coping. Wagner focusses quite closely on the subtle nuances of Rennie’s psychosis with a deliciously deft hand.
Hillyard and Madsen do a brilliant job of working their way through the psycholigical complexities of Rennie’s inner world without grossly amplifying the earthbound realism of the visuals. There IS the occasional inflection point in the story that needs to be hit a bit harder than the rest of the panels in the issue, but even in those moments of intensity, Hillyars and Madsen keep everything firmly real. This allows the characterization of Rennie to be overwhelmingly subtle throughout the issue. That subtleety is easily the biggest accomplishment of the entire series thus far. Rennie is largely affectless throughout much of the series. This makes he feel all the more vulnerable and relatable. That affectless would seem pretty lifeless were it not for the fact that the art team does such a brilliant job of keeping everything feeling so very, very realistic.
Three issues in it’s very apparent that Rennie is heading towards a very wild and chaotic end by the end of the school year. Three issues in and the series has reached the mid-terms. This suggests something like a six issue story arc. Things can’t possibly end well for Rennie, which is really too bad. Wagner and company do such a good job of making Rennie a fun person to check-in on once a month. It’s going to be sad to see her go in another three issues or so.
