Lady Killer is a magnificent play on words that draws you into the story of Josie Schuller, the lady who is a killer. Josie is a perfect 1950s-era housewife and mother who is also, secretly, a trained assassin.
The book opens with an Avon lady calling on a homemaker client in the afternoon. Innocuous, sure. Very June Cleaver. Then we see the Avon lady slip something into the housewife’s drink and we get a taste of the brutality Josie is capable of as the poisoning attempt fails and she is forced to improvise the successful conclusion of her contract.
The running joke is the balancing act of a life of homemaking when the husband is home and murder when he leaves for work. Early in the tale, this life is threatened by assassin-for-hire politics and a nosy mother in law. The breakneck pace of the story takes you from mission to mission, interleaved with Josie’s perfectly coiffed housewife persona, lipstick un-smudged. Her mother-in-law’s sordid suspicions of infidelity are hilarious when compared with the dark reality of Josie’s wet work side job.
The graphics are perfect, underscoring the clean with the brutally messy and lending a counterpoint to the story. The background scenery is quintessential 50s décor and style. Setting the comic in that era of squeaky-clean nuclear family life with its underlying Cold War paranoia and clandestine chaos is a telling commentary on how we can look back at an era with rose-colored glasses. Lady Killer has just published its fifth issue, each as entertaining as the one before. Be aware, some of the scenes are graphic.
Books in the Park 