By d. emreson eddy — In “V: Behind the Painted Smile”, Alan Moore mentions that early incarnations of the story that would become V for Vendetta included a protagonist in “The Doll” who was a transgender person. I think that you can still read V's character in that way, the origin and details are indeed vague enough, but the idea was overtly passed on. Ideas very rarely stay buried, though, and the character of Doll Seguin popped up in another dystopian fable, Fashion Beast, from Alan Moore, Malcolm McLaren, Antony Johnston, Facundo Percio, Paul Duffield, Hernan Cabrera, and Jaymes Reed.

Fashion Beast started its genesis in the '80s as a movie project that the former Sex Pistols manager and performer in his own right, Malcolm McLaren, approached Alan Moore about collaborating on. The movie never happened, but the script that Moore wrote for their story was eventually adapted into a comic when Avatar was going through publishing some of his old works. It's a kind of oblique reinterpretation of the Beauty & The Beast fairy tale, where fashion is one of the few bright lights in a society beset by rationing due to an unending war.

Thematically, Fashion Beast shares a lot in common with V for Vendetta and Watchmen to the point where it really should be considered alongside them. It deals with an oppressive society warped and twisted by war, through the lens of Doll, a coatroom clerk, who is then swept up into the fashion industry as the obsession, primary muse, and model for the designer of Celestine. The story gives us a commentary on sex, gender identity, the costumes we wear to give the outside world an impression of who we are, and how those costumes might change us.

The adaptation work by Johnston, Percio, Cabrera, and Reed is wonderfully done. Like Johnston's previous adaptation of Moore's The Courtyard (with Jacen Burrows), there's a very deliberate feel to the pacing and layouts. I'm not sure how much is Johnston's comic script and how much is Facundo Percio's artistic choices, but it gives a structure and rhythm to the story, often appearing as four-tiered pages, that mirrors the rigidity of the world the story takes place in. 

Percio's style reminds me a bit of Darick Robertson and Danny Lucket, clean lines and highly-detailed, but with something just a little bit exaggerated when it comes to faces. Combined with clothing that might be Russian, might be mid 20th century France, might be '60s England, the specifics themselves keep you a bit at arms length adding to the hallucinatory fairy tale effect of the story and setting. Cabrera's colors keeping a large portion of the world and its clothes in muted, darker tones, allowing for the rare pops of color and occasional appearance of white to stand out even more. Like Doll as Marilyn Monroe. Reed's lettering rounding out the team in a very capable fashion.

Fashion Beast by Moore, McLaren, Johnston, Percio, Duffield, Cabrera, and Reed is a fascinating addendum to the landmark dystopian work that Moore and his other collaborators were crafting in the '80s. It feels very much like a companion piece to V for Vendetta, like a step-mother's reflection. Even on its own, though, it's still an entertaining fable with an interesting look at how fashion shapes our identity for good or ill.

Classic Comic of the Week: Fashion Beast by Alan Moore and team

Fashion Beast
Writers: Alan Moore (story & script) & Malcolm McLaren (story)
Adaptation: Antony Johnston
Artist: Facundo Percio
Tarot Design: Paul Duffield
Colorist: Hernan Cabrera
Letterer: Jaymes Reed
Publisher: Avatar Press
Doll was unfulfilled in her life as a coat checker of a trendy club. But when she is fired from the job and auditions to become a “mannequin” for a reclusive designer, the life of glamour she always imagined is opened before her. She soon discovers that the house of Celestine is as dysfunctional as the clothing that define the classes of this dystopian world. And she soon discovers that the genius of the designer is built upon a terrible lie that has influence down to the lowliest citizen. This unique retelling of Beauty and the Beast was written in 1985 alongside Alan Moore’s comics redefining work on Watchmen. Beautifully illustrated by Facundo Perico (Anna Mercury) and meticulously adapted by Antony Johnston (Yuggoth Cultures), this is another entry in the graphic novel masterworks library by Alan Moore.
Release Date: August 7, 2013
Price: $1.99 each
More Info: Fashion Beast

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d. emerson eddy is a student and writer of things. He fell in love with comics during Moore, Bissette, & Totleben's run on Swamp Thing and it has been a torrid affair ever since. His madness typically manifests itself on Twitter @93418.