REVIEW: Scarlett Couture: Project Stardust #1 (of 4)

Writer: Des Taylor
Artist: Des Taylor
Publisher: Titan Comics
Release Date: April 29, 2015

For a while now, the art of Des Taylor has been appearing in my Facebook news feed. I have smiled at the quirky style, the over the top colours and the overall fun aspect to it. Imagine my surprise when I am confronted by a whole issue of Taylor’s work!

Scarlett Carver is the head of security and logistics for her mother’s, Chase Couture, fashion empire. However under this guise lies a headstrong, multi-skilled C.I.A agent, who is able to scope out situations and act, Â mainly without back-up. Catch up time; Scarlett is on the case of a couple of missing supermodels. Cue bullets, babes and bad guys. Story wise, there isn’t anything particularly new about the book. Scarlett isn’t the first female James Bond we have seen. Even the fashion element reminds me of an US show called Cover Up from the late 80’s. That said, the script is as quirky as the art. The dialogue is a little all over the place. The set up inner monologue is fine, though sometimes belies the headstrong element with a sprinkling of self-doubt. Is it this self-doubt that is driving Scarlett to prove herself? The vocal dialogue at times seems like it is trying too hard, especially with regards to the insults aimed at Scarlett.

The art is just plain gorgeous. The style would be 60’s pop art meets animated cells. The colours match the pop art style. The lines of the characters are somewhat Fleischer styled. It is easy to see who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The heroes are square-jawed, and the heroine attractive. The bad guys are muscled jock types and even the twirling moustache type has a moustache.

The challenge for Taylor is to make this book work for the whole four issues. As a one-off visit the book is charming, fun and vibrant. But like too much sugary goodies, I imagine you could get sick or bored just looking at pretty pictures. As this is the first issue I would be doing Taylor a massive disservice to state that this is the case. For now, I am going re-read the book and hope that the following issues can sustain this quality of art, whilst improving on the script elements.

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network