The last issue of Clown Fatale reads like the big showdown at the end of an eighties action movie with the lead clown in the Stallone role. Amusingly, Rosenzweig draws a Punisher stand-in with Stallone’s nose.
But there’s only so much to the comic. Gischler gives it a somewhat open ending without begging for a sequel. He spends maybe a fifth of the issue getting to that end point. The rest of it is just the blonde clown beating up the bad guys. Gischler writes really good dialogue for the fights, he plots them really well. Even if he manages to execute them better than a mainstream comic, it’s still just a lot of action.
But he and Rosenzweig have enough humor and enough solid character work in those actions scenes they appear to be more. The approach isn’t deceptive, it’s just a masterful use of an extending genre.
B+
CREDITS
Writer, Victor Gischler; penciller, Maurizio Rosenzweig; inker and colorist, Moreno Dinisio; letterer, Nate Piekos; editors, Shantel LaRocque and Daniel Chabon; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.
Gischler doesn’t appear to be writing for a sequel series, which is both good and bad. Good because he’s taking this series on its own, bad because Clown Fatale is so much fun.
This issue of Clown, Gischler goes for out and out absurd, profoundly sad and some other things. It’s a joy to read, even if the sad moments drag in some reality. Gischler’s not willing to write off the series as fluff; he’s trying to give it some actual content. Except that content is never as good as the funny stuff.
I sort of didn’t want to like Clown Fatale. It’s about four female clowns in a lame circus–where the circus owners moonlight as assassins. Given the Fatale in the title, I should have guessed they were sexy clowns. I didn’t, but they are sexy clowns. I’m not sure if Victor Gischler came up with this genre or if there are other examples….