Lady Killer (Vols. 1 & 2) by Jamie S. Rich & Joelle Jones

Lady Killer by Jamie S. RichLady Killer is a very funny, though dark, story about the troubles a woman faces when she works out of the home, balancing job and family, in the early 1960s. The twist, however, is that Josie Schuller’s work is that of a contract killer in heels. The humor comes in because her family — husband, two daughters, and live-in mother-in-law — are all clueless. Well, except maybe for the mother-in-law who is beginning to suspect something is not quite right with her all-too-perfect looking daughter-in-law.

The story is funny because it has all the clichés of the suburban family from the time period: The father with his feet up on the table watching TV after work while the wife, looking her best, prepares dinner for a largely unthankful family. The boss and his wife come over for dinner, and he is all hands and jokes of the most offensive kind. The kids run wild, and it is the mother’s job to make sure they wash up for dinner — the father is oblivious that his wife does all the work and never offers to help out.

In fact, the father is so out of it, he does not have any suspicions, even typical ones of infidelity, though his wife keeps finding excuses to leave the house and come home late. He does not even suspect when a strange man comes to visit in the evening. Not even looking up at the open door, he automatically accepts his wife’s telling him that it is just a neighbor coming by to visit. The mother-in-law, however, is always on the lookout, highly attentive to these irregularities.

In this story, Avon calls, but it also kills. Tupperware parties do not go quite as planned, and the gentlemen’s club can be a deadly establishment for men out for the night. The biggest problem for Josie Schuller, however, is not how to kill, but how to escape the life of a killer. Not everyone at work is ready to let go such a valuable employee. Will she be able to rededicate her life to her family? Or perhaps she just wants to be self-employed.

I highly recommend this story if you don’t mind some violence. The art really makes the comic book, capturing the clichéd look of the 1960s as much as the plot does. I read these two volumes in one sitting. The story grabs the reader within the first issue, and it is hard to stop reading until you have finished all ten issues.

Published in 2015. Josie Schuller is a picture-perfect homemaker, wife, and mother–but she’s also a ruthless, efficient killer! She’s balanced cheerful domestic bliss with coldly performed assassinations, but when Josie finds herself in the crosshairs, her American Dream life is in danger! A brand-new original black comedy series that combines the wholesome imagery of early 1960s domestic bliss with a tightening web of murder, paranoia, and cold-blooded survival.

Author

  • Brad Hawley

    BRAD HAWLEY, who's been with us since April 2012, earned his PhD in English from the University of Oregon with areas of specialty in the ethics of literature and rhetoric. Since 1993, he has taught courses on The Beat Generation, 20th-Century Poetry, 20th-Century British Novel, Introduction to Literature, Shakespeare, and Public Speaking, as well as various survey courses in British, American, and World Literature. He currently teaches Crime Fiction, Comics, and academic writing at Oxford College of Emory University where his wife, Dr. Adriane Ivey, also teaches English. They live with their two young children outside of Atlanta, Georgia.

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