You Should Be Reading: Suicide Girls

How do you translate SuicideGirls, an alt-pr0n website featuring beautiful naked women who happen to be tattooed to the gills, have tons of piercings all over their body, or both, into a comic book?

Very, very carefully.

And that's exactly what the team of Steve Niles, Brea Grant, Missy Suicide and artists David Hahn and Cameron Stewart is doing with IDW's SuicideGirls, a 4-issue comic book miniseries based on the website of the same name! A comic with a pedigree like this is very tricky to make, understandably. It's easy for this to explode into pages of naked pinups in lieu of actual story, as is the custom. But thankfully the book's got Steve Niles (writer of the critically acclaimed 30 Days of Night) and Brea Grant (actress and comic book writer) at the helm, with a little help from SuicideGirls co-founder Missy Suicide, to help steer the book in the right and well-written direction.

Still not convinced? Read on as I review the first two issues and know why you should be reading this book!

SuicideGirls #1 opens up with a mysterious girl named Frank being busted out of prison by the Suicide Girls, a group of female freedom fighters looking to liberate the world from Way Of Life, a religious organization that holds the internet in an iron grip. The Suicide Girls need Frank for as-yet-unknown reasons, while Frank has an agenda all her own...

I loved how the writers used the prison break sequence to to introduce each of the Suicide Girls, their specialties and quirks presented to us in easy-to-digest amounts. These girls are not tongue-in-cheek parodies, nor misguided attempts at taking naked pin-up models seriously in a comic book. The Suicide Girls come across as real personalities; their piercings, tattoos and half-naked bodies the bonus and not the focus. That fact alone makes it such a refreshing read, and not something you'd be ashamed of reading in a Starbucks during rush hour.

Of course, Suicide Girls also benefits from the wonderful art provided by David Hahn and Cameron Stewart. They handle the art duties with a much-needed senstivity and artistry you don't see too often in comics like these. Hahn gives each of the girls a distinct look and body type. Porter's sports purple hair, twin ponytails and glasses, while Sana's the exotic beauty.  There's something for everybody!

These are basically pin-up models he's drawing here, and Hahndraws them well with just the right mix of sensuality, titilation and a little bit of fun. I mean, Frank has what's called a corset piercing on her back, which she uses as a sheath for her katanas! Only in comics!

Suicide Girls #1 is more of an introductory issue, laying down plot points for use down the line. But it works as a good first issue, with all you need to know to get you started, along with great art and an interesting premise. If this stuff floats your boat, then issue two will knock your socks off!

In Suicide Girls #2, which is out this week, the girls are caught with their pants down (literally and figuratively) when robotic goons of Way Of Life come knocking at their front door! The book only goes crazier from there, with cyborg death bots fighting half-naked girls with katanas and guns and an assassination mission, Suicide Girls style!

This issue is more fanservice-y than the last, with the Suicide Girls spending the rest of the book either in their underwear or out of it. Kim (the demolitions expert) even lamphades that fact, wondering why the bad guys always seem to catch them without their clothes on, with Porter hypothesizing that Way of Life has sensors installed to women's clothes to find out if they're wearing any. Crazy.

But it's not as crazy as half-naked girls going way deep undercover, infiltrating an organization that hunts down half-naked girls. Only the Suicide Girls are crazy enough to make their plan (sorta) work, but there's a traitor in their midst, and it's pretty riveting to see how their plan slowly comes undone, ending in a cliffhanger that makes you want to know what happens next.

David Hahn really knows how to tickle the reader's fancy through his art. This issue is more risque than the last, and more action packed, and Hahn gets to cut loose and have fun here. Speaking of fun, one thing I also love about the series is the pinups at the end of each issue, drawn by Cameron Stewart. The dude draws beautiful women like it's second nature to him, and if there was ever a coffee table book full of nothing but his drawings, then I'll be first in line to buy it.

If the quality and all-around fun keeps up like this, then issue 3 can't come out fast enough!

I know it seems weird for me to recommend a book like SuicideGirls (or maybe not, judging from the dirty looks of my officemates here), but I'm genuinely excited for this series, if only because it's so refreshing to see a comic book about pinup models not devolve into a mess of T&A with the flimsiest of reasons for becoming so. If you're looking for a comic book that's not of the usual mold, then try SuicideGirls. Beautiful art plus crazy fun but well-written story equals win! SuicideGirls #2 is out this week, with the first issue not that hard to find. It's worth it!