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Clown Fatale #1-4

Clown Fatale

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When four down-on-their-luck, sexy clowns are mistaken for contract killers, the pandemonium begins. To prove themselves in the high-profile world of contract killing and big bucks, the girls are going to need to paint their faces and head to war . . . with the real killers. Can the femmes fatales stand toe to toe?
Created and written by Victor Gischler ( Buffy the Vampire Spike--A Dark Place , Kiss Me, Satan , Phantoms of the Black Coast )!

112 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2014

33 people want to read

About the author

Victor Gischler

373 books415 followers
Victor Gischler is an American author of humorous crime fiction.
Gischler's debut novel Gun Monkeys was nominated for the Edgar Award, and his novel Shotgun Opera was an Anthony Award finalist. His work has been translated into Italian, French, Spanish and Japanese. He earned a Ph.D. in English at the University of Southern Mississippi. His fifth novel Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse was published in 2008 by the Touchstone/Fireside imprint of Simon & Schuster.

He has also writes American comic books like The Punisher: Frank Castle, Wolverine and Deadpool for Marvel Comics. Gischler worked on X-Men "Curse of the Mutants" starting in the Death of Dracula one-shot and continued in X-Men #1.

Gun Monkeys has been optioned for a film adaptation, with Lee Goldberg writing the script and Ryuhei Kitamura penciled in to direct.

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5 stars
8 (14%)
4 stars
17 (31%)
3 stars
19 (35%)
2 stars
9 (16%)
1 star
1 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Profile Image for Sam Quixote.
4,839 reviews13.5k followers
December 5, 2015
Remember the Grindhouse fad from roughly ten years ago? Someone needed to have told Victor Gischler that Grindhouse-style “homages” are over now. That’s what makes Clown Fatale so boring, because Gischler uses “because Grindhouse!” as a constant excuse for lazy writing and a cliché-ridden script.

Why are four scantily-clad ladies circus clowns for kids? Grindhouse! Excessive T&A? Grindhouse! How do these four women get stupidly mistaken for professional hitmen? Grindhouse! How do they instantly become badass assassins who can take out Mexican sicarios and Russian hitmen despite having no training or experience? Grindhouse! There’s a quiet ninja-type Asian chick – Grindhouse! Gratuitous violence? Grindhouse!

It may be intentionally crap because that’s the "Grindhouse style” - but it’s still crap. Clown Fatale is a joyless celebration of dumb garbage drowned in its own irony.
Profile Image for Josh.
1,732 reviews191 followers
June 16, 2014
Four deadly sirens are mistaken for undercover assassins when visited by a broker at the circus. Each of the female clowns comes from different walks of life but they all share a common bond; the want of cash and a better life. So when opportunity knocks to knock-off a target for a cool 50k they reluctantly, then relish the opportunity, revelling in a sinfully sexy new killer persona.

Then comes the second chapter and the Serbian Death Squad; the true killers the sexy clown fatales are mistaken for. Midway through this book, author Victor Gischler ramps up the body count while delivering insight into each fatales predicament. This is a bloodbath but Gischler still makes each of his killer clown crew unique and believable.

As the third chapter gets underway, Gischler provides a brutal demonstration in the escalation of violence. It’s clear, that despite their occupation, these clowns are babes built for carnage not laughs.

Overall, CLOWN FATALE is incredibly violent and completely entertaining. Gischler leaves a small glimmer of hope for further instalments of these killer clowns while closing the door on this story arc.

The art (by Maurizio Rosenzweig) and inks (by Moreno Dinisio) compliment the scrip perfectly and are flawless in delivering a vivid image equally sexual and murderous.

This review first appeared on my blog: http://justaguythatlikes2read.blogspo...
Profile Image for Lono.
169 reviews107 followers
July 5, 2014
A ridiculously violent grindhouse pleasure. Filled to the tits with slutty clowns, Russian assassins, hillbilly mobsters, and circus mayhem. Nothing believable here, just balls-out carnage from start to finish. Something you would expect Tarantino and Rodriguez (i.e. “Machete”) to come up with. Victor Gischler provides the pulpy dialogue for the hard-luck tramps and Maurizio Rosenweig provides the wickedly titillating artwork. He’s new to me and I love his stuff. So if you’re a fan of unrestrained bloodshed and gratuitous up-skirts, you won’t be disappointed.

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Profile Image for Kate.
54 reviews2 followers
February 5, 2017
I was really hoping this would click with me, as it features dangerous clowns -- and LADY clowns, no less, which is somewhat rarer! Maybe I was hoping for something kind of like a playful comic book sister to "ClownFellas: Tales of the Bozo Family" -- which this definitely isn't. As it stands... There was one line I found genuinely funny, but not a whole lot that struck me as especially clown-ish, outside of some design choices and the idea of feeling like a joke/craving respect (which was interesting, but undeveloped.) As in, we don't really see any of these women ever behaving like clowns??? Which was disappointing. It just felt like one long fight scene with brief interludes of (often repetitive) banter. That may've been intentional, but it still left me feeling hollow. If you're more familiar than I am with "Grindhouse" and go out explicitly seeking various long fight scenes featuring clowns that don't actually want to be clowns or find any value in it, you may "get" this more than I did.

(I'm bothered by the characterization of Aya, too, tbh -- felt sort of slimy and extra exploitative. One girl's opinion. Was she more character, or caricature?)

All in all, this felt kind of routine and joyless, which is odd considering the subject matter. I wanted to really like it! Perhaps you will, if you go in looking for something like this... It just didn't speak to me.
Profile Image for Robert Bussie.
889 reviews3 followers
April 3, 2020
This is what a Quentin Tarantino and Rob Zombie grindhouse movie collaboration would look like. It is a brilliant homage to 1970s exploitation films. Gritty and violent goodness.
Profile Image for Bob.
929 reviews
July 22, 2014
Female clown assassins and great art. What more could one ask for?
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews