Freshman Year And Fresh Man Flesh: ‘I Was a Fashion School Serial Killer’ #1 Review

I’m a bit late on this one, but with the news of I Was a Fashion School Serial Killer #1 selling out, I’m at least still in the game with this review. I just hope writer Doug Wagner and artist Daniel Hillyard don’t have a shallow grave with my name on it for my tardiness in posting my thoughts on their newest serial killer thriller.

The debut issue features fashion student Rennie Bethary who has a keen eye for the more exotic fabrics she makes her clothing creations from. Unlike Wagner and Hillyard’s previous unhinged serial killers Rennie does not share their love for man made textiles. She prefers her’s to be be made of man.

Something of a goth and a loner, she’s a freshman who can’t help but fall under the influence of her bubbly antithesis, Sofie, who comes with her own her friends. And boyfriend, Bodhi. It’s a fun and bloody take on the usual college coming-of-age-drama with much of the issue setting up the cast, motivations and some backstory, and a quintessential coterie of mean girls too.

Wagner always find new ways to titillate and thrill in the serial killer/slasher horror sub-genre with Hillyard providing a more finesse style to his art with thinner outlines and style that subtly even more refined.

Like the best serial killers, Rennie is hiding in plain sight. With just a touch ion the macabre about her to tease the reader will all her around her are oblivious. Is that an ivory hair pin. Her teacher asks? I think not.

Once again Wagner and Hillyard deliver a character – and their first female killer – that you find yourself empathising with. Even though you shouldn’t. You really shouldn’t. It’s a book that, for now, has toned down the horror in favour of establishing characters readers can relate to. College kids doing college things. But with murders.

I Was a Fashion School Serial Killer #1 is out now from Image Comics.