Vertigo's EFFIGY reviewed

It’s been a few years since I was eating a steady diet of Vertigo comics. I believe the last series I was reading was FABLES, as I was heavily into the FABLES inspired (can we say ripped off?) ONCE UPON A TIME. But time and money got the better of me and it was back to a steady diet of spandex heroes. And while that is still the case, I have been branching out lately as all of these cataclysmic stories are getting me down and I need a slight flavor change. Based on reviews I have read, I figured to give EFFIGY a try and boy: what a wild read!

We begin by being Chondra Jackson who was once the star of the kid’s show STAR COPS. After nine years, she ended up an ex kid’s show star and was forced to come back to her home in Effigy Mound. Over the years of retirement, her mother helped produce a sex tape of her daughter, to keep her in the public eye. Currently, she works in Effigy Mound as a police officer. She gets called to help on an incident in Serpent Mound National Park, where a newly mummified body has been discovered. The body has a STAR COPS tattoo on her back. She also meets Detective Grant Moore and we also meet a she-male prostitute named Edie Chacon. Edie was Chondra’s closest male friend when they were kids.

Obviously things have changed as Edie is now a total STAR COPS fan.

As the investigation continues, Edie reveals that the dead woman is Sheila Harmon and she ran a STAR COPS Fan Corps in Carbondale. The coroner later reveals that she was mummified by some sort of industrial dehydrator. This leads our heroes to the STAR COPS Convention. Copcon 2015. There, she meets with fellow ex-cast member Trevor Latta. Back in Effigy Mound, Sheila mother meets with the girl who found her daughter and they both exclaim "Hello Jonathan". It’s funny that Jonathan plays a role as he visits superfan Henry Durka, claiming to be Henry's general. Meanwhile, there is a a complete sub-plot running about involving Laurence W. Lauritz, his servant Nunnu, and a mysterious cult.

Before we reach the sixth issue, there is more convention doings, suicide and murder. Oh yeah: and some weird sex too.

This is truly NOT a kid’s book and totally ranks up there with some of the weirdest of Vertigo titles. Leave it to Tim Seeley, the bad genius behind LOVEBUNNY & MR.HELL and HACK/SLASH, to come up with a story this twisted. And Marley Zarcone’s cartoony art is a total fit for it! C’mon: we have mummies, she-male prostitutes, sex tapes, and a POWER RANGERS inspired TV show. Not to mention a stage mom who just drips sleaze AND a weird cult. You know you want to check this out!