Published on May 21st, 2015 | by Richard Boom

Review: Scarlett Couture #1-2

So out of the woods comes creator/artist Des Taylor, with a spy-thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat!

Or as Titan Comics says it

Using her cover as Head of Security for her mother’s internationally renowned fashion house, she gathers intelligence for the CIA. In this explosive first issue, Scarlett follows her instincts right into the middle of the action and finds she needs to use all her wits to get herself out of hot water!

and for #2

Things are heating up for Scarlett Carver, secret agent and fashion heiress.

Having rescued a kidnap victim and escaped an explosion by the skin of her teeth, Scarlett finds the clock is ticking if she is going to discover exactly who is behind the murders of seemingly innocent models – and what it is that they want!

Scarlett Couture feels like a mix of Danger Girls, Sin City, Superman cartoons, and with even more depth to the story then one would expect.

Where Des Taylor is already famous for his vintage-feel cartoony-fresh imagery of especially Superman and his ladies, his work in actual comics has been not as massively exploited, save the Valentine-comic he did way back via Image Comics.

His development of Scarlett Couture as a comic is surprisingly stunning, in both the visual sense as well as character development and lest not forget the scripting and dialogue itself.

Visually Scarlett Couture is as appealing as are Taylor’s pinups; the fresh vibe you get from his use of colors, clean thick inks, the use of photographs, partly repeating panels to get a dynamic movie-feel. It is all handled brilliantly and with apparent ease.

Storywise you are hipdeep in intrigue and action, but Taylor manages to use a lot of dialogue and voice-over to create a backdrop of authenticity to all the big characters involved, making this a treat to read as well as drowning in the visuals. The messy violent parts are done off-camera which appeals to a level of decency some comic creators forget excist. It makes the book look even more classy, even!

Characterwise readers can relate to the brassy, young Scarlett but also to her teammembers, her Covert Ops aka fashion mogul mother, her cop/detective father and also the really bad BAD guys that keep offing supermodels!

Bottom line? With stunning retro-art, great dialogue and story, the feel of a good action-spy movie, this comic is just ready to be in anyone’s collection!

Scarlett Couture #2

WRITER/ARTIST: Des Taylor
COVER BY: Des Taylor
PUBLISHER: Titan Comics
PAGE-COUNT: 32PP
PRICE: $3.99
ON SALE: May 27

Tags: des taylor, scarlett couture, titan comics

About the Author

Richard Boom Richard is the driving force behind Comics for Sinners. His love and admiration for female comic book characters is virtually unparalleled, which immediately explains his biggest 'sin': his Hot Mummy fetish. This sketchbook theme is philogynistic in nature and even the source of his WIP comic book series "The Sisterhood".