Richard Suicide’s work wreaks havoc on my calm little life. His abject and frank visions are technically a social commentary with a lethal side order of pedestrian angst, but it makes my skin crawl. Is this the effect the artist is going for? When you work at the complaints department of the Regular Zoombie Insurance Company, “life” isn’t easy. There’s always someone complaining about this and that. “I’ve stopped decomposing for 3months…I don’t stink any more… Smell me.” This book makes me feel incredibly disturbed and itchy. Suicide has a way of championing this darkness and then stifling hope and assuring the reader: “Edmund figured this had to be the most miserable day of his life, even Renaldo, his deeply depressing rubber ducky had to agree.” I found hope in “South Center Chronicle” in which a former porn actor passes his time sweeping the sidewalk and finds a plump roast chicken that is inhabited by the chicken fairy. This book is morally illegible and a real horror show. (Jack Cena)
by Richard Suicide, 117 pgs, Conundrum Press P.O. Box 55003, CSP Fairmount, Montreal, QC, H2T 3E2, $15