Sirens of the City #1 is an urban fantasy/monster story set in late 1980s Manhattan by writer Joanne Starer and with wonderful black, white, and spot colors from artist Khary Randolph. It follows a 16 year old pregnant, unhoused girl named Layla, who has been abandoned by her foster family, but can make people do what she wants as illustrated in a jaw-dropping opening scene where she literally makes an anti-abortion protester walk into traffic. It’s a middle finger to the Moral “Majority” that had so much political power at this time getting many white Christian voters to switch their votes from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan and also is a sad reminder that maybe things really haven’t gotten better. As the story progresses, Layla runs into old lovers and meets new folks while Starer and Randolph peel back the curtain on Manhattan and dig into its supernatural underpinning with different factions vying for territory and power with our heroine caught between them.
As a huge fan of post-punk and Golden Age hip hop music, the aesthetic of Sirens of the City initially drew me to the book. Randolph’s cover for the comic is striking and evokes an era when porn and grindhouse theaters were in Times Square instead of Olive Gardens and Sbarros, and his clothing and hair choices for Layla set her up as an outsider and fiercely individualist with her blue braids, bullet belt, leather jacket, and copyright friendly Misfits patch on her ripped skinny jeans. Thankfully, Khary Randolph’s interior work matches the cover’s power, and his Batcave (The Goth night club in London, not Batman’s HQ) meets Planet Rock costume design make even table setting and talking head scenes engaging as Layla encounters Peter Murphy-esque vampires and crime kingpins that would have blended in with Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force. However, what sets Sirens of the City apart from other empty calorie 1980s nostalgia exercises is that Joanna Starer and Randolph explore the cultural context (With a fantasy twist) around these fashion and music movements instead of just dangling empty signifiers for the GothTok/Hot Topic crowd exploring themes like gentrification, the intersections of race and class, and literally from page one, reproductive rights.
A character that Layla interacts with frequently in Sirens of the City #1 is Davi, the son of a wealthy New Yorker, who basically does poverty cosplay throughout the issue and follows her around the issue like a wannabe white knight figure. Davi woos a starving Layla with wine and cheese, but she knows that he just wants something from her and doesn’t even give him her name until she gets lost on the way to find her biological mother. Starer and Khary Randolph use him as a send-up of the kind of artist and people who seem dangerous and transgressive, but really end up being about conspicuous consumption and will eventually move back to the suburbs and have 2.5 kids. And, of course, he’s in a situationship with Marisol, who is deeply connected to the supernatural side of New York, even as she masquerades as a bohemian art girl. A panel where she dangles the aforementioned vampire off a rooftop really establishes her as a force to be reckoned with and a key figure in the series.
The whole situation with Marisol, her boss the Rat King, and other power players that are introduced towards the back half of the series reminds me a lot of wealthy moguls and executives who take advantage of poor young people and their talents and skill to manipulate them while having no real talent except a fat bank account. Layla has a unique power set and no real connections and is ripe to be manipulated. Thankfully, she has self-awareness too which shines in Joanna Starer’s captions, and some of the dialogue too like when she tells Marisol that the Rat King is a sleaze bag. But her lack of understanding the New York supernatural underworld creates a lot of tension in Sirens of the City leading up to the first big cliffhanger.
Sirens of the City has immersive art with timely pops of color from Khary Randolph, a socially relevant script with fun Gothic melodrama elements from Joanne Starer, and recontextualizes monsters of myth and folklore using 1980s New York as a backdrop. I came for the cool outfits and storytelling and am staying for Layla’s journey.
Story: Joanne Starer Art: Khary Randolph Letters: Andworld Design
Story: 8.1 Art: 9.0 Overall: 8.6 Recommendation: Buy
BOOM! Studios provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Source: Graphic Policy
