Book Review: Kevin Dart’s Looks That Kill by Elizabeth Ito
Kevin Dart’s Looks That Kill, by Elizabeth Ito.
Here is an unusual but delightful item, the first in Dart’s Yuki 7 Gadget Girls series that combines an original secret-agent novel with a Flash-animation “complete movie trailer” DVD.
According to Dart’s website publicity, the Los Angeles-based freelance commercial illustrator, who has interned at Pixar, got the idea to create this early-‘60s James Bond-esque novel + Flash-animation movie trailer series in 2008. He put together his own studio by e.mail, consisting of story artist/author Elizabeth Ito, London animation director Stéphane Coëdel, Paris jazz composer Cyrille Marchesseau, and himself plus 14 other artists including Meg Hunt, Matthew Lyons, and Horia Dociu; all working in their spare time around their regular work.
Their first work as Fleet Street Scandal included a Flash-animation faux-1964 theatrical trailer and appropriate theatrical posters for the imaginary Cinemascope thriller A Kiss from Tokyo, in which secret agent Yuki 7 pursues the femme fatale Diamond Eye who is killing top scientists and building a missile in her volcanic lair. (http://www.artofthetitle.com/2009/07/13/a-kiss-from-tokyo/) The faux trailer was a promo for, and included with, Dart’s first book, Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7, by Ada Cole; 72 pages describing the mythical 1960s spy film series starring Yuki 7 (limited edition, printed for Fleet Street Scandal by Global PSD, an international art-house publisher, July 2009, including faux movie posters, behind-the-scenes stories, promotional art, production stills, soundtrack album covers, etc., $25.00; now sold out). Now here comes the first “novel” in the Yuki 7 Gadget Girls series, in which Yuki 7 is the leader of the Tokyo-based team of Gadget Girl Sophie, Gadget Girl Vogue, Gadget Girl Lili, Gadget Girl Cici, and Gadget Girl Nadya (plus Gadget Dog).
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