Suicide 5 by Jason Pell and Ryan Howe

I had posted sometime last year about the Kickstarter Jason Pell was doing for a book called Suicide 5. The books have been released to the Kickstarter funders and I was very pleased to get my copy.

Suicide 5 is a hard cover graphic novel that looks at what people will do to become famous, and by becoming famous, immortal. The question is asked, what would you do to become famous? The answer for the group of characters is kill themselves in the most spectacular way and film it to gain fame. While the premise of killing oneself and broadcasting it may seem far fetched, incidents have happened where people have done just that.
The book does not glamorize suicide as one might suspect. Instead, it shows the grisly reality and the consequences in a Tales from the Crypt or M. Night Shyamalan twist. The characters quest for immortality is not all that it seems. As the story unfolds we find out more about the details of their deaths and the unpleasantness that goes along with it, not just the death itself but the wanting to live. After the characters are gone we learn about the true legacy their actions resulted in, it is not what they expected.
The story contains everything a horror hound like myself likes to see, grisly deaths, nudity, sex. None done over the top, but just enough as a nod to great horror movies.
The book itself is well done. The total package is quality, from cover to binding, to paper stock. This was not done on the cheap. The art is clean, the writing smooth and easy to follow with no gaping plot holes. You do have to suspend disbelief that five people would just go and off themselves in a grisly fashion to garner fame, but it is made more believable as you find out how broken the characters are as individuals.
Again, this was a Kickstarter. My copy came signed and personalized from Jason Pell, which was a nice touch and thanked comicsheatingup for support of the book. But being that it is a Kickstarter it won’t immediately be found in stores. They are working on that. If you are going to be at Baltimore Comic Con, Jason Pell will be there and may have copies available.
In the meantime, copies are intermittently available on Amazon.
Suicide 5
This book is totally worth picking up.