Death In the City of Devils--My Living Dead Dolls Series 5 Collection Overview

This will not be the most proper "completed series" LDD overview because I did not complete this series in the most standard way. I got both editions of one doll, and I got all five characters, but my complete set as I like it consists of three mains and two variants, so it's not a fully representative set of Series 5 either way. As such, I can't be as objective about the ranking because I did select dolls to serve my appeal.

LDD Roundup 3 features my discussion of Vincent Vaude and his variant, LDD Roundup 4 (Gruesome roundup) features my discussion of Hollywood, LDD Roundup 5 features my discussion of Siren, and Uncomfortable Living Dead Dolls, Part 1 (heavier read) features my discussions of Dahlia and Jezebel. Click those links to catch up on the individual doll reviews.

Because these dolls come from successive decades and reference old media eras, I had a lot of fun exploring a slice of LDD "history" through these dolls, all from one sphere of the world, dying across multiple decades, and being overseen by one mortician. I loved creating news media pieces about the celebrities' performances and deaths from their eras of entertainment history, and it was fun paying attention to the LDD death chronology to figure out who could have logically been around in the scene during each celebrity's time. The mysterious Dr. Stitches named on each death certificate also inspired me to fan-design the unseen coroner and turn him into a custom doll with his own more defined story, since I thought it was compelling that he'd been tenured for long enough to see "patients" from the 1920s to the late 1990s. From this, I created the story of a man who rebuilt himself cosmetically for a long time, and died and returned from the dead during this long career, continuing onward in his role as one of the living dead. See his project in this post.

In effect, my work with Series 5 became so focused on internal facts, thematic repetition, and consistency within an alternate history timeline that this series turned into a fanfiction worldbuilding project for me, built on the crumbs of canon available to me! Truly, most of what I got from this series was what I put into it!

I did not collect the dolls fully linearly regarding their death order--Dahlia would have had to come before Hollywood for that to be the case, but Vincent, Hollywood, Siren, and Jezebel were obtained in linear order. My custom Tinselton Stitches, with where I decided to place his death in headcanon (the same month of 1970 as Siren, days just before her) also fits into the mostly linear structure, because with him according to my concept, the order would be Vincent, Dahlia, Hollywood, Tinselton, Siren, and Jezebel.

The way I picked the dolls, when lined up in the death order, happens to create the perfect visual of a gradual transition to color, reflective of developing visual media and truer-to-life imagery!

It feels like that old gag claiming the past really was in black-and-white before color came to the world, and I think this could have been a fun gimmick for the official design, where the dolls officially transitioned into full color according to their spot on the timeline.

This even works when I throw in Tinselton!

With this series, as with Series 23 (read that project in one go here if you like, or search through my post list at the top bar for the original non-linear edition), I ended up creating formulaic art concepts to explore and return to with each doll. I had several more series of pictures for Series 5-- the celebrity news item(s), the performance advertisement, the professional appearance, the autographed picture, the physical signed footprinted slabs, and the autopsy photos with Tinselton.

Here's the news pieces I made for each, in LDD timeline order:

A 1920s classic newspaper.

Inner page of a 1940s rag.

Hollywood's piece, imitating a 1960s Variety magazine front page.

Magazine cover styled after 1970s Life.

Vile imitation of a vile National Enquirer edition--this is entirely character voice for the purpose of emulating nasty trash, and not reflective of any of my approach or beliefs.

Jezebel got a second news piece just because I wanted to be fairer to her character--here, she has a magazine interview.

For every news piece, all extraneous characters appearing on the pages were selected to fall within the timeline based on their official death dates--every doll depicted in these news pieces was dead by the time the corresponding S5 character made news. No time travelers! That accuracy mattered to me!

Here's all of the posters I made for the stars' shows.

Vincent's vaudeville-theater poster.

Movie poster for Dahlia's angry edgy autobiographical film.

Movie poster for Hollywood's tasteless autobiographical drama film.

Opera poster for Siren.

Opera isn't the same as Broadway, but I couldn't resist making her a second piece for a playbill.

Poster for Jezebel's burlesque show.

Here's my favorite photos of each in their element:

And all of the autograph pieces. I had just done them for Hollywood and Dahlia before deciding each S5 celeb deserved one, and made some for the others after the fact.

My favorite idea was making a sidewalk slab with footprints and signatures for each character, based on the celebrity slabs on the walkway of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Personalizing each was a fun idea, and it makes a fun display.

Vincent's slab, impressed with chains and desperate banging hands on glass.

Dahlia's slab, cut apart and stapled back together like she is.

Hollywood's slab, blood-splattered and impressed with the wounded side of her head.

Siren's slab, impressed with her stitched lips.

Jezebel's slab, signed with a doodle of a rose and vines like her tattoo and costume.

All of these slabs were designed before the autograph photos, which was helpful because I could copy the signatures I drew into the claw to ensure consistency on the signed photos. That made everything feel all the more tied-together and real.

Because the dolls at autopsy relied upon the non-canon design of my Tinselton Stitches, I put this series on its own here despite each of these pictures' events ostensibly occurring before each star's news piece was published.

Stitches cuts the bindings on Vincent.

Stitches staples together Dahlia.

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Hollywood arrives at the morgue in a bloody sheet, but still wrapped in her feathers.

Stitches is about to discover some stitches on Siren.

Stitches tries to bandage Jezebel.

And here's Tinselton's own set of these recurring photos, also set aside because he's not canon. This series would take place between Hollywood and Siren.

Waking up on his own table to perform self-autopsy.

Tinselton's news piece--a magazine article in the very same issue as Siren's story, but written before she became front-page news.

A poster for an ethically-dubious public autopsy show.

Tinselton relishing in the morgue.

Tinselton's illegible autograph photo, themed on X-ray imagery.

Tinselton's slab, styled off his own coroner's reports.

I put together a lot of recurring unifying work with these themed pieces for each character, and it was fun creating a world out of this slice of LDD from the historical crumbs the dolls provided.

The footprint positions of the slabs were chosen so Hollywood would stand centered while the other four surrounded her at an angle.

Tinselton's slab is also centered so he can join Hollywood in the middle, and a slab I made for extraneous character GreGORY the ventriloquist is also centered so he and Tinselton can surround Hollywood in the event I get him. The Great Zombini and Viv could also join this roundup if I get their pack to have the canon dolls.

Now for my ranking lineups--left to right is best to least. Tinselton is not in contention, though I'm very proud of my work with him. First, the character designs:

I'm not the most comfortable saying it given her very real dark and fairly disrespectful basis in true-crime history, but variant Dahlia is one of the most appealing dolls in the series. She looks edgy, strong, confident, and glamorous, and the silhouette of her costume and her black-and-white coloration is great. She also has some very impressive creepy gore sculpts and her outfit has polish. Main Dahlia would be lower for me due to lacking the color appeal with her less stylized and more grounded palette. If main Dahlia was blonde or platinum, she'd have a stronger look.

Jezebel manages to muscle through her deeply upsetting imagery into my second-favorite design. Her look combines plausible vintage styling with absolute camp, and she's got very strong cartoony LDD appeal and a whole ton of presence on the shelf. Her colors and silhouette and over-the-top burlesque look are very charming, and this is high praise for a doll who includes potentially triggering imagery that even made me squeamish. I'm surprised that didn't knock her down more.

Variant Vincent Vaude is above Hollywood. His color palette and minor detail changes make him look more haunting and theatrical than dead and mothball-scented, and there's a real spooky vintage drama in his look. He sells the escape-act gone wrong beautifully and completely trounces the main doll and his ugly, drab visual by changing just a few things. Part of why I like him so much might well be how impressive the effect of his changes are in improving on the main doll. Without that contrast, would he strike me as much? I also just think the variant-series concept of black-and-white dolls was very good, but only Vincent and Dahlia really felt just right within that set. It was a very difficult question whether Jezebel or variant Vincent was my second favorite, and there's an argument that Jezebel's design includes such an upsetting feature she deserves to be lower next to Vincent. But while Jezebel is too much, it's not in your face...and Vincent feels like just a bit too little. Neither Vincent doll feels like an escape artist--just like a dead vaudevillian. Had LDD included chains or bindings or locks and keys on the doll's person to dress his role more, he'd easily move up a slot. I had to do that myself as it is.

Hollywood is in the middle. Her look is campy and glam, but the gore gets a little too grim to fully feel elevated and silly, though I do appreciate the half-and-half facial contrast and the wicked use of scalp paint in her gore design. Her hair is also hard to arrange into the best look.

Main Vincent Vaude is on the bottom. He's a purely ugly doll who looks dead and decayed and elderly by accident, and his color palette was workable but didn't come out right in practice. While variant Vincent gets by with no accessories or escape trappings because his look is formal and dramatic enough to stand alone, the main doll as released especially seems lacking for ropes or chains or locks because you don't get the stage-performer vibe from him. He's just a dead four-year-old grandpa, and that's why I added his bindings.

If I was reviewing a full set of mains, I think Jezebel might end up as the number-one, Hollywood or Dahlia as the number two, Siren as the number four, and Vincent as the number five. 

If I was reviewing a whole set of variants, I think Dahlia would be number one, and Vincent number two. Jezebel would be number three because her look, while not altering any color values, does have a good black-and-white film look. Hollywood would be number four because her black blood and black hair are striking in the new color palette, but the outfit color swapping is disjointed, with only the feathers inverting to white. Had Hollywood's full dress flipped to white alongside the feather accents, she'd be stunning. Siren is the number five of the variant designs, when ranked as a distant observer, because her palette seems the lowest-contrast and loses some contrast and drama of the main doll.

Ranking the dolls for quality:

My variant Dahlia is very nice.. Her hair looks good, her stapled sculpts are well-made and nicely painted, and her costume strikes me as very polished with its embroidery and fringe and texture. She also stands very easily and solidly. 

Vincent Vaude in either version (neither superior) comes in the middle. Nothing wrong with him, nothing spectacular. His hair shaping isn't the best and gel helped out a lot, and his clothes are incredibly tight-tailored and hard to take off or put on, but the doll is okay and succeeds in its aims in either variant.

Hollywood is after. Her dress is nice, but stained a lot, and her hair is a bit of a puffy mess. I think LDD made it a bit more voluminous and curly than it was supposed to be, and it can't really be fully tamed into the more glamorous wavy silhouette. Her shedding feathers also get annoying.

Jezebel is just below. Her feathered epaulettes and rose headband are lovely, and the extra details of her tattoo and garter are nice, but her hair gets a little flyaway, and her left hand didn't get any of the red paint detail on her fingernails that it was supposed to. Her dress is also not spectacular, and the cut of the bodice around the shoulders doesn't feel symmetrical.

Siren is lowest, but it's very subjective. Her two-part dress feels very cheap and simple, but her cape is pretty grand and successful. I think the cape would have been the saving grace and placed her higher, though, had it not fastened with a ribbon tie around her neck, which I found so frustrating to use that I replaced it with velcro instead. As it is, it was the most promising piece that still flopped on the basis of its closure mechanic.

And overall ranking for my broad experience with each:

I'm shocked to see variant Dahlia at the top of every category, but despite her extremely questionable concept, the doll itself is very well-made, has a lot of design appeal, and worked nicely for art inspiration. She's a good toy even if she's a really bad idea. Some of this credit must be awarded to her being the variant doll. Main Dahlia wouldn't be quite as high up there.

Hollywood comes after. Her design doesn't quite click for me with her half-gory face being a little too real, and her hair is a nightmare and her boa is fiddly. She wasn't an easy doll to work with and her concept is similarly tasteless to Dahlia's, but she got great results in the photo department and I have to respect that. She's also the best exemplar of the series concept.

The Vincents come after Hollywood. While the main doll is one of the ugliest ever made by LDD, the fact remains that neither doll had any notable issues and I got good photo work with each edition that I'm quite proud of. They benefit from extra trimmings to sell the escape-artist look, but they're perfectly fine.

Jezebel is a weird case of a doll I quite like who had good photo work, but I don't really want to reward her because of her graphic suicide imagery putting me off and her burlesque theme toeing the line of taste. While her painted cuts don't torpedo her character design, they do still lower her as a doll in general. Her quality is also delicate and flawed enough for me to put her lower. Her low place in this ranking doesn't mean she's a bad doll, though.

Siren is at the bottom again. I was just overall the least impressed by her doll. She's a cute spooky design, and she did debut a great face sculpt, but she doesn't feel especially polished to me. Her cape is the only part of her that feels really quality, and the deliberate simplicity of the visual design doesn't really flatter her when the hair and dress don't feel that great. It can feel like she was simple because she had to be to fall within budget...or it can feel like a cheap execution even for a deliberately simple design. And even with the cape being fancy, it tied around the neck with a ribbon, making for a very frustrating and disappointing system that I had to replace. Siren might be the closest I've gotten to not being happy with an LDD acquisition, and she's the only doll in the series I can come away calling outright disappointing. There's actually a big gulf between Jezebel and Siren in this personal ranking.

Clearly, fame isn't all it's cut (and choked and suffocated and crashed) out to be. 

LDD Series 5 asks what one should be famous for, but does cross the line of taste in multiple ways in doing so. Its uncomfortable content makes the collection hard to endorse, as does the fact that I found the most objectionable doll('s variant) to be the best toy in the group. But I can't help but be charmed by the old-Hollywood concept and the variety within the series. Series 23 definitely had a more consistent caliber of designs, though Series 5 didn't offer any drastic frustrations or quality failures like I encountered in review and handling of S23. And again, much of the appeal of the series for me came in choosing variants over mains when I saw fit, because there was less appeal in main Dahlia and Vincent. 

I had fun with this set...even if I had to take it in my own direction.

I'm on track next to complete LDD Series 6, which has been progressing on and off through my series of LDD Roundup posts, though I'm thinking the final doll, Jinx, will be a solo topic in September, then followed by a Series 6 overview post. Despite the small trick-or-treat horde I've already secure, I still have multiple more Halloween LDDs to get for my grandiose October blogging plans, and I worry building a whole roundup around Jinx and getting two more dolls to join her would lock me out of being able to get everything I want for Halloween during my September/October collecting. It's going to be great.