National Comics: Looker #1 – Review

By: Ian Edginton (story), Mike S. Miller (art), Rex Lokus & Antonio Fabela (colors)

The Story: Careful, boys—these ladies can rip your heart out.

The Review: I’ve often spoken of these showcase titles as being perfect opportunities to explore new characters (or polishing off old ones so they seem like new), but amazingly, I didn’t realize until reading this issue is these titles are also great for exploring some new creators, too.  Having long felt DC’s writing staff could use some new blood (and its gang of artists as well, to a lesser extent), this could be a great way to test folks wanting to break into the mainstream.

With that in mind, you both understand and question Eginton’s reasoning in featuring Looker for his DC debut.  With such a glut of vampire fic already out there, who needs another one?  The choice seems especially unwise considering DC already has a whole series led by unnaturally slender, blood-sucking immortals.  Edginton would have to come at Looker from a completely different angle than Andrew Bennett and Mary, Queen of Blood, to make her worth reading.

The fashionista background definitely places Looker in a whole ‘nother world from Andrew and Mary, but I don’t know how interesting this world actually is.  My knowledge of haute-couture weighing in effectively at zero (“fashion-unconscious” doesn’t quite capture it), Edginton didn’t actually have to do much to portray it convincingly.  Even so, I can tell a lot of artifice goes on in this issue, if only because nothing he writes departs much from stereotype.

Looker never succeeds in making herself out as an insider; at no point does she tell you anything that you couldn’t have observed yourself from watching a two-minute catwalk on television: “Where models thinner than a cigarette parade outfits that cost fifty times a nurse’s salary.  Most haven’t touched carbohydrates since ninth grade, surviving instead on a diet of caffeine, nicotine and often much worse.”  Clearly, not much research or experience went into this.

And our heroine doesn’t help by falling in line with the model stereotype, either—or at least, her past self does.  “I was a bitch back in my warm days, too.  More so, in fact.  I poured poison in all the right ears.  It wasn’t just that I had to succeed—everyone else had to fail.”  Still, her brutal candidness, even in hindsight, gives her a more interesting voice than expected, though she defeats a lot of that by her mostly passive behavior in this issue.

Edginton definitely struggles with National Comics’ one-shot format, and he doesn’t make it easier on himself by using a fairly extensive supporting cast (Roma and Charles, Looker’s assistants at her modeling agency, and Paul, Looker’s scarred ex-cop buddy).  He spends a lot of time diving into their backgrounds and moreover, he just spends a lot of time with background in general.  Even when he tries to slip bits of exposition into the action, he doesn’t quite manage to be subtle.  Looker gasps, “You’re a vampire!”

“Nothing so common!  I am an incubus.  I dine upon the souls and life energy of others.”

Miller has a manga-inspired quality to his work: long, delicate lines, angular faces and lithe bodies, an emphasis on cleanness rather than intricate detail.  For a comic that’s basically a fashion outlet, he does the right thing by making everyone look pretty indeed, although his sense of design is a lot tamer in comparison to some of the stuff you might see in real life.

Conclusion: Fitting for a comic revolving around fashion that it’s more about image and attitude than substance.  Edginton makes inefficient use of his time, resulting in an issue that fails to make you understand why you should care about Looker.

Grade: C

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – If one thing dooms Looker to pure one-shot status, it’s the fact that Edginton doesn’t even make the effort to fit his mythology with I, Vampire (unlike the bloodsuckers there, she burns in sunlight).  We can’t have these aberrations in continuity this early on in the game.

– I’m amused to note that Looker’s big reward at the end is the possibility of a one-night stand.