Suicidegirls

This collection of glossy shots marks the second birthday of the near-legendary eponymous Web site founded by Missy Suicide (borrowing a little hipster terminology from a Chuck Palahnuik novel in the process) to promote her own pin-up photography, and to make a place where women could ""be themselves."" The large format book is well designed and finely printed, with over 150 full-color photos of Scarlett, Flux, Fractal and the rest of the pierced, tattooed, leather-'n-lace-lovin' gang. The bulk of the book consists of Missy's portraits of the girls, but a section at the back allows the girls to speak for themselves through diary extracts, their own photos and their answers to questions like ""How did you hear about SuicideGirls and what made you want to become one?"" As 25-year-old Le from San Francisco puts it, exposing herself in various ways on the internet is both ""a hobby and an art form."" The S-Girls are spirited, sans doute, and you have to applaud Missy for making such a go of something she loves. But after a while, the tattoos and pierced nipples do tend to blur into something of a sub-Courtney Love mush. (And readers of a certain age won't be able to help wondering if any of these bedroom performance artists have boned up on Lora Logic, Poly Styrene and the much less generic-looking fem-punks of a previous generation.) One diary extract gives the flavor of the whole: ""Fuckin' ex boyfriend. You suck. Your records suck. Think I'm gonna throw 'em somewhere, in a garbage dump.""